


Fade Theory

by cityofsilver



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Chicago (City), GRITTY urban thriller except not, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 00:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3154574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cityofsilver/pseuds/cityofsilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Ryan, Brendon, and a stubborn city that pushes them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fade Theory

**Author's Note:**

> I started this damn story well over a year ago now - I've given up on it and started again so many times (which is ridiculous because it’s really not THAT long) For people unfamiliar with Chicago - the 'L' is the rapid transit system, and the Loop is the city's main business district.

 

 

_Chicago, 2009_

He gets into a fight with a boy, and he knows, he _knows_ – those never end well.

It starts with a club. A seedy, trashy club that had a way of making you feel like a different person entirely. He has a cigarette firmly between his fingers, and pinpricks under his sleeve. It must have only been September, but it was _cold._

He watches as other people come falling out the back entrance too, some doing the same thing he was; shivering for a smoke, escaping the thick air inside for the sharp air out here.

There’s a group of twenty-something year old guys sharing joints over by the curb; every time a car drives by one of them gets shoved towards the road in a fashion that will inevitably result in a ambulance.

Ryan shifts from one foot to another, annoyingly distracted by the forthcoming car crash, and he’s speed smoking now, flicking his cigarette, one, two, three.

The metal backdoor of the club bangs open again suddenly, breaking the raucous of the drunken guys by the road, and the tapping of Ryan’s finger. He moves his flattened hair out his eyes and sees a guy step out, young, short and innocent looking. He’s got dark cropped hair that shows a face pulled into a frown. When he looks up, he catches the eye of someone by the road. A wrong thing to do, by any standards.

“Hey, _faggot!_ ” one of the guys stumbles over.

The boy backs up, just a tiny bit.

“Stay the fuck away from me Len, seriously.”

His voice is unexpectedly deep, and sounds far too confident for the situation. Ryan can’t even see the kid’s glare properly, not in this light, but his reply makes Ryan stand up straight from his position slouched against the wall.

Four of the guys corner him in a way anyone would find at least vaguely threatening.

“How did ‘stay the hell away from here’ translate to you, kid?” the tallest guy says. Len. He’s got a wrinkled, weathered face and a buzzcut, and he’s straight up into this boy’s face. Even Ryan is put off, but the kid sticks it out, standing firm.

“Oh fuck you! Stop marking out streets for yourself, you fucking–”

Ryan sees it coming before the kid is punched hard in the abdomen by one of Len’s crew, his mouth widening and emitting a howl of pain. To his credit he throws one right back, and Ryan is suddenly intervening, because he’s an idiot, he’s always been an idiot.

“Okay, Okay, hold the fuck up–”

The kid’s face snaps towards Ryan, and there’s a flurry of movement as Ryan gets shoved against one of the other guys, a shout of anger erupting. Ryan loses his balance completely, landing on the ground, scraping and cold on his hands. The kid is fuming, though.

“Stay the fuck out of this, asshole!” It’s directed down at him.

Ryan squints up in disbelief at this kid’s nerve – all the he was trying to do was help, and now he was sprawled on the fucking filthy ground.

Len’s guys get bored of the situation quickly, drunken minds not able to keep up with the boy’s quick movements. They slump off, and Len kicks the kid one last time. Right in the kneecap, causing him to keel over in pain. “I mean it when I say stay away,” he says, bitter and low, and then he’s walking away, shouting profanities over his shoulder as he heads back into the club.

Ryan gets up too, and gives the damn kid a shove on the shoulder for his assholery. “I was trying to help, Jesus Christ,” he spits. He doesn’t think he’s been this pissed off in a long time.

The kid looks up scathingly from his doubled over position and for two fleeting nanoseconds, Ryan watches the lights of the passing traffic glint over the boy’s eyes instead of moving away.

He winds up with a black eye, of course, and he staggers home with one hand clutching his face and thinks, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

+++

 

 

“Shit, Ross. What happened to your pretty face?”

Ryan pauses on his way up the grimy concrete stairwell, glancing disdainfully down at William, the tall guy barely past twenty who’s main hobby appeared to be aggravating every tenant in the block, particularly Ryan. Ryan suspects his roommate just kicks him out when he can.

Despite his desire to avoid all conversation with William, he still lifts his hand automatically to his eye. “I fell,” he snaps. “Get the fuck out of the way, William.” The grocery bag was digging into his skin now.

“Bullshit,” William snorts. He stands up and brushes himself down. “Ross got into a fight, _again_ ,” he sing-songs. Long greasy hair falls into his eyes as he peers at Ryan’s face. “That looks like it hurt, man.”

Ryan shoves past William and hurries up the rest of the stairs, the bag banging against his leg. He can hear William clambering up behind him and asking questions in his grating lofty voice, but Ryan’s not listening.

His eye has had two days recovery time now, but it’s still bloodshot and bruised. Ryan’s spent those two days staring at himself in the mirror and cursing under his breath. That kid, that kid could fucking punch. _Asshole._

He finally reaches his floor, the dull bang of the hall door falling shut behind him. It’s an old, run-down and on-the-verge of dangerous apartment block – he could admit. He’d openly admit.

He just couldn’t afford anything else. If he had to deal with absent elevators, drug raids and annoying tenants, than that’s what he had to deal with.

He scrapes his key through the lock and shifts the bag into the other hand as he closes the door behind him. His apartment is more like a claustrophobic room – a damp-walled, badly heated room, fitted with a kitchenette and bathroom just off the side of it. There’s a mattress spread on the floor in the corner and a tiny kitchen table hanging onto its final days, plus an outdated television set sitting on a plastic side table. He also managed to get hold of a small, suspiciously marked couch from down the street, which he was still pretty smug about.

He’s only gotten as far as putting the beer away, stacking the cans right in the middle of his empty little fridge, when he hears William banging the door down. Like hell was he letting him in.

He grabs his pack of cigarettes and treads to the window, pulling it up and climbing out while taking care not to rip his only remaining pair of jeans.

South Chicago was bright and clear that day, a polar opposite to how Ryan felt in his head. He pulls his knees into his chest and flicks his lighter on and off as he sits perched on the windowsill. The only view he has from here was the back alley between the two apartment buildings, and he thinks there must be some metaphorical meaning in that, somewhere.

Goosebumps start appearing on his bare arms. He’s more than sick of Chicago already.

The worst thing is that he knows he’s not getting out of here, not soon. His job cleaning toilets at the bowling alley had given him _something_ , money for a haircut, for beer, for supplies he really needed. He frowns and shakes his cigarette box. For Marlboros. He’s dangerously close to running low.

But then they caught him smoking up in the back room on his break, that _one_ time, and that was the end of that miserable pay check. He hasn’t seen one since.

He shuts his eyes unhappily and leans his head against the side of wall.

William somehow manages to get through the one substandard lock Ryan bothered with, probably with his nail file or tweezers, and doesn’t even hesitate in strolling across the room and pulling up the window behind Ryan.

Ryan leaves his eyes closed, just waves his hand dismissively in his best possible _go away_ gesture. There’s a minute of silence that Ryan will not give in to.

“Are you wasting all your money on smokes again?”

“No,” he drones, lifelessly. “Smokes _and_ booze.”

“Booze,” William repeats. “What the hell are you eating for meals?”

“Booze.”

“You’re fucking unbelievable,” he says. Ryan just hopes that means he’s going to fuck off back to his own room now.

Of course he doesn’t.

“Well, hey. I think I have a job for you, so you can maybe include some food on your shopping list. Because dude, you’re going to die, and I’ll be sent in for questioning. No one else _talks_ to you, they’re too afraid.”

Ryan tuned him out after the word ‘job.’ “Job?” he asks. He had no idea why William felt the right to stick his nose into Ryan’s business, but the idea of a job was becoming desirable. Maybe even completely urgent. He was quickly running out of his limited supply of cash to pay his rent.

There’s a pause, and Ryan reluctantly opens one eye to see William smiling proudly, like he got his way somehow. Ryan Ross’ interest.

“Yeah! A job, Ross. And it’s really, really easy.”

 

+++

 

 

 

The job _did_ turn out to be really, really easy. It wasn’t what Ryan had in mind at all, but William apparently was friends with some guy who runs a sushi bar for students down a half-deserted alley, and that’s how Ryan winds up sitting on a metal fold-up chair in the freezing cold, holding up a signpost with “Wasabi Sushi Bar, Next Left” written artistically on the placard.

Hundreds of people must walk by every hour, and Ryan watched every pair of eyes passing for the first hour at least, hoping they’d glance his way. By noon he was getting almost painfully self-conscious and shivering erratically. The wind picked up as time went by and the sign became harder to hold up.

He almost falls off the chair when he sees William galloping over, and then groans inwardly when it looks like he wants to talk. “Ross! How’s life as a working man? Doesn’t it feel good to go out and make a living?”

“Tell me, oh infallible William,” he says, loudly and as a sarcastically as he can over the noise of the crowds on the streets. “What do you do to make a living?”

“This and that,” he smirks. “Chicago has totally dried up on jobs. What’s up with that?”

If William was going to be chatty and conversational in subhuman temperatures on a packed pedestrian street, then he decides the best course of action is to ignore William completely in the hopes that maybe he’ll go _away_. He puts his face into his sweater while still trying to keep the post steady.

The tip of Ryan’s nose finally stops stinging in the dark warmth of his jumper, and William is still rattling on about Chicago’s economy and employment rates and really, Ryan doesn’t _care_ ; he’s cold and sore, and his almost permanent hunger feels more obvious than usual.

Plus, he needs a cigarette, but it may not be an ideal advertisement for the sushi bar.

“William,” he says, pulling his head out of his jumper and letting the air sting his face again. “I’m fucking – working, okay, so let me concentrate. Can you not do this later?” He hastily makes a mental note to double padlock the door that night.

William ignores his complaints and instead leans down to prod at his wrist in a concerned manner. “Oh no, Ross, you’re shivering. You’re going to die of pneumonia, and this time it really will be my fault.”

“Why the hell are you so concerned with being blamed for my death?” he drawls, and is surprised at how ironic it sounds. “Do you have records? Is there skeletons in your closet?”

William pauses with an air of someone who doesn’t know how to reply.

“Fuck!” Ryan exclaims. Of course – no one as irritating as William could _not_ have a criminal record. William would drive a cop mad in seconds. Unsurprisingly, the taller boy straightens and quickly changes the subject. “Don’t you have a jacket, Ryan, seriously? A sweater is not going to keep you warm on an October day in Chicago.”

He sounds far too reasonable for someone who not only just admitted to having trouble with the police, but also for someone who was even more lightly dressed in a thin shirt with sleeves barely reaching his wrists.

“Look at what you’re wearing, asshole!”

William looks down, as if just noticing his outfit now. His hair is too long, Ryan thinks – too greasy and untidy. At least Ryan made sure he kept his styled and clean.

“I don’t see your point,” he says, smugly. “I’m warm-blooded, and I’m used to this city. What’s your excuse, oh foreign one?”

Ryan resolutely puts his head back into his sweater again.

“It’s okay,” William says, but it sounds fainter now, the buzz of the people walking by drowning out the sound of his voice. “It’s okay because you’re probably not even going to last five days doing this job.”

 

+++

 

 

Ryan actually has his signpost-holding job for nine whole days, and when it comes to an end, it’s through no fault of his own. He was just sitting there, hunched over in the cold, when Tom or Tim or whatever the bar owner is called comes out and pokes Ryan in the back, tells him that they can’t afford to pay him anymore, and that he could clear off now, thanks.

Ryan puts up a fight for four seconds, because seriously, he was being paid by the day on _commission._ Which never amounted to much at all – but at least it had been something. But Tim or Tom forcefully take the sign off him and walk back up the small street without a word.

Ryan makes sure to glare at the other guys doing the same job as him (as he _had_ ) while he trails forlornly up to the shopping square. It’s mostly young men without a dollar to their name.

Just like him.

He winds up in the park eventually, kicking twigs around for an hour and shuddering with the chill that’s now permanently etched into his bones. When he feels like he’s sulked enough, he digs into his jean pockets to see what kind of cash he has.

Three dollars and a crumpled up receipt. He figures that’s more than enough for a drink tonight.

He’s swinging his shoulder around to turn and head downtown when he spots a boy several yards away, sitting on the bench over by the pond. He’s staring dejectedly at the ducks swimming in circles.

It’s not exactly _a_ boy, but more like _the_ boy, the one who wreaked havoc outside of the bar the other week. His elbows are propped on his knees and he’s sitting on the bench like he’s been there for days – maybe he has.

Ryan’s just about to go marching up to him and punch his lights out because he’s been getting looks for his fucking black eye ever since that night, and he’s so sick of it. Not like he hasn’t had black eyes before, he definitely has, but never from guys shorter and younger-looking than him. It bothered him immensely.

But he hesitates; maybe because of where they are – in a public park, and he knows that if he went up it would probably end in a fight, plus, there’s little _kids_ playing by the pond. The mid-afternoon sun is peeking through the dismal sky and it’s all too crystalline for Ryan to destroy.

The boy though, the kid, he doesn’t look crystalline, just miserable. A part of Ryan wants to know why. Wants to know his name, why he’s alone like him.

He’s most definitely not drunk enough for this.

Only a moment passes before the sky closes up again – the mother pulls her kids away from their ogling at the ducks and suddenly the boy is standing up and putting his hands deep in his jacket pockets as he turns away from the pond. His jeans are tight, and his shoes look new and Ryan knows it’s just a guess, but something about the kid made him think he wasn’t just a street kid. He could see the iPhone clutched in his hand before it went into the pocket with his fist.

He catches Ryan’s eye, and Ryan is frozen on the sidewalk; he doesn’t know what move to make here.

The decision is taken away from him when the kid just walks up, looks at Ryan’s mouth as he passes and says, “Nice eye.”

Ryan can tell it didn’t come out as arrogant as he maybe hoped, but it still makes him ball his fists in anger.

He keeps walking though, and Ryan, still frozen in fury on the spot, watches his back as he heads to where Ryan just came from, hunching tense and small against the wind.

He puts a hand over his eye and tries to relax the tension in his hands, in his shoulders, the tension that just built up at record speed. And then he puts his hand back around his dollar bills and marches determinedly out of the park, in the opposite direction to the nameless boy with empty eyes.

 

 +++

 

 

“Ryan Ross, you sad, sad fucker."

He blinks painfully, the sudden light of the garish bulb on the ceiling blinding him. “Huh?”

He shuts his eyes again while he stretches his arms out, and then freezes when his thought process catches up with him and he realises that that was most definitely William’s voice speaking.

His eyes shoot open. “What the — William?”

The man in question is sitting perched over Ryan on the sofa, which was _William’s_ sofa, and oh god, why is he in William’s apartment? He looks instinctively down at himself. Still clothed, thank god.

William lets out a burst of laughter that is far too loud for Ryan’s ears right now.

“Don’t worry, Ross, we didn’t fuck,” he laughs. He’s texting someone on his phone as he sits almost on top of Ryan on the couch. “I do like how you thought of the possibility, though.”

Ryan groans and throws his head back down on the cushions. Softer than his own and smelled less like puke and beer.

“You did, however, come wandering in here at one in the morning, took my last bottle of Jack, you bastard,” he chuckles again, like this is all absolutely hilarious. “My fault for leaving the door unlocked, I guess. Mike would kill me. You were so out of it, man – you couldn’t even make it past the doorjamb again.”

William brandishes his hand in the air. “But then I dragged you back here to the couch because I’m a really good friend. You should thank me more often, Ross.”

Suddenly it wasn’t just the light that was giving him headache – it was everything – the pulse in his head, his mind trying to work through William’s story, the sound of his voice.

There’s a bang of something falling in the room adjoining, presumably William and Mike’s bedroom. Ryan doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to know their sleeping arrangements. Mike seemed like a nice enough guy but living in the same apartment as William was a choice Ryan naturally was suspicious of.

He throws an arm down and feels around on the floor for the bottle he knew was down there somewhere.

“Jesus, absolutely not, Ryan Ross!”

William is up in a second, picking the bottle of gin up off the floor and carrying it into the kitchen. Ryan watches in terror through one half-open eye as William pours the remaining liquid down the sink. Fuck. That’s precious fucking stuff.

The asshole turns around, smug look in place. “You’re not drinking any more of this shit today. Or tomorrow. I’m officially staging an intervention on your alcoholism.”

Ryan would argue – in fact he has a “fuck you” and several insults on his tongue – but he forgets what he wants to say as soon as he opens his mouth, so instead he turns his head over on the cushion and muffles his whine into the fabric.

 

+++

 

 

“How can someone as hopeless as you not have been to an employment centre?”

Ryan’s fingers pause their incessant drumming on his knee. He uncrosses his legs and clasps his hands together instead.

“I dunno. Because jobs find _me._ ”

“Wow. Even for you _,_ that’s incredibly mature.”

Ryan scowls, and tips his head back to stare up at the spotlights. The seat beside him has a puddle of water on it because the roof was leaking pretty badly.

The centre resembled more of an old hospital than anything else, with linoleum everywhere it could possibly be put and a depressing sense of gloom lingering. There was a huge balding guy behind a desk in the corner who had already vetted Ryan thoroughly with his sharp eyes before handing over a form.

Ryan hadn’t used a pen in light years, and it was obvious when he took over three minutes to fill out his Name, Middle Name and Surname in wonky but painstakingly careful writing. William had sighed hopelessly and grabbed the pen and paper out of his hands, proclaiming “Jesus, _I’ll_ do the writing.”

Which of course, led to a painful session of, “How many siblings do you have?” “What kind of skills did you acquire from your previous job experience?” and “Education enlistments?” And okay, it’s not like Ryan’s information is classified, but telling his questionable hippie neighbor all this private stuff could not have been good. It unnerved him.

(“Highschool graduation year?”

“Didn’t graduate.”

William had given him a scandalized look at this new information. “And why the fuck _not_ , Ross?”)

After what seems like dozens of years and people passing, a clerk appears at the door and calls out “Ryan? Ross?”

William stays seated and smiling widely as Ryan trudges over to the dude; a tall, unsuspecting guy with glasses covering half his face, who leads him into a small office. Then the door is closed.

The man, with a nametag Ryan can’t read from his seat, starts scanning over Ryan’s application form (with William’s neat handwriting) and drums his fingers into the cheap wood table while Ryan glances over the office in a bored way – generic framed artwork of mountains on the wall, a lamp in the corner and filing cabinets. There’s a window behind the guy’s head that shows nothing but the roofs of the buildings beside it.

“Not from Chicago, huh?”

Ryan’s eyes train back to his. He was fully expecting that question.

“No, I’ve only been here for two years.”

Nameless Guy puts his forms down. “Okay.” His eyes flick briefly over them as he speaks. “Well, I mean no offence, Ryan, but you don’t really have any practical skills, or any qualifications, even. You said that your last job was cleaning bathrooms?”

He nods. “Yeah, bathrooms and the foyer and stuff. Sometimes when they were short-staffed I cleaned the alleys too.”

What a career.

“Good. You can clean then, I guess?”

“Sure, I can clean.”

“Well,” he says, stretching out the word as he wheels his chair over to the computer. “I could definitely get you a cleaning job.”

He types for a second. “I could even get you a cleaning job somewhere nicer than a bowling alley. How about that, huh?”

Ryan smiles back in a sardonic ‘Yippee’ sort of way.

There’s several seconds of silence as the Nameless Guy scrolls on a screen that Ryan can’t see. “So why did your employment end at Blane’s Bowling Lanes?” His eyes are still on the screen.

Ryan reclines a little into the hard plastic chair. “They couldn’t afford all the cleaners they had. Since I was the youngest, I got the boot.” He was always good at lying, at least.

Nameless guy hums thoughtfully and then makes a questioning sound.

“Blackfeld Corporation headquarters are on La Salle street. They have a cleaning job vacancy.” He pushes his glasses up his nose. “They’re very nice offices, you’d be on more money than you’re used to, and it’s a fancy district too. Will I enquire for you?”

Ryan blinks. A job in the Loop. That’s definitely something he’d never once imagined. Huh.

“Sure then. Thanks.” He thinks of the money – forget the location, this could be his lucky break, if they still existed in this life.

Ryan finally catches the name on the guy’s shirt – Ken. Ken shakes his hand over the table. “No problem. You’re a young man still – but you don’t wanna be doing these jobs forever. Go back to school when you have enough saved up. It’s a tough world out there.”

Ryan doesn’t hear, nor care, about any of this parental advice – his mind of full of hazy images of actually having enough money to stay living with a roof over his head and pay for his bar hours.

When he walks back into the waiting area, he doesn’t want to admit to William that bringing him here was a good idea. When William asks, he shrugs, runs a hand through his hair and says, “We’ll see.”

 

+++

 

 

The L train to La Salle and Randolph is almost an hour long.

It’s nine on a Tuesday night, so the train is understandably deserted. Ryan isn’t a regular rider of Chicago’s public transit – when he goes out to socialize he does it close to home in Englewood so he can walk.

He’s also kind of pissed at the hours. Ken had set him up with an interview for a night cleaning job at these Blackfeld offices, which was completely inconvenient and taking up his night time. His favorite time of day would now be spent polishing desks of Harvard business graduates.

He has a hip flask tucked under his shirt anyway, just in case he needs a pick up shot afterwards.

When the train finally rattles into his station he's the only one left in his car. A few stragglers get on, and he shoves his hands into his pockets and jogs down off the platform. He doesn't have a watch, but he's definitely a few minutes late. The air is bitter cold, with the cloudless sky that day leaving nothing to warm his bones up.

He breathes out a sigh of relief to find that the Blackfeld offices are only a two minute walk from the station; he recognizes them from the description he was given. Boring software company offices which stretch up to what looked like about twenty floors, all glass.

He crosses the street easily and he shoulders into the revolving doors (after a short interrogation by the securtity guy – Ryan doesn’t even blame him for being suspicious)

The foyer of the building is big with hard carpet floors and a mahogany reception desk that’s shaped in a semicircle. There's no one around besides the one security guard, and Ryan's about to turn around and forget the crazy idea when the elevator doors spring open further back in the lobby and a short, aging woman comes out, mop bucket and apron in hand. She doesn't see him for several seconds as he stands silent and still like a ghost under the florescent lights.

When she does notice him, she immediately looks confused before her brows settle into a frown. Ryan reckons she's in her fifties at least, and her graying blonde hair is tied back tight in a bun.

“Hi," he tries, and walks a couple of steps forward to reach her. “I'm Ryan Ross, I'm here for an interview with Sheryl Keiler. I think I'm..." He glances up and sees a giant white clock above the desk displaying Chicago's time along with LA’s and NYC’s on smaller clocks beside it. “And I'm ten minutes late. Sorry."

The woman continues to frown and he begins to worry if maybe she doesn't understand what he's saying at all, maybe she doesn’t speak English, until she sighs deeply and snaps, “You're not ten minutes late. You're a whole hour and a half late."

He was… definitely told nine o’clock. He opens his mouth to argue but she puts her hand up to silence whatever was going to come streaming out of his mouth.

“Listen, kid – Office clean starts at seven thirty every night, you understand that? Everyone is assigned a floor, and from there you are assigned rotas for different areas. This is a big office with a high professional standard, and there’s no room for anything less than the best. I expect perfect punctuality and cleaning that leaves no speck of dust or debris.”

Ryan nods quickly as she speaks, and not once does her sharp look disappear. “Now, cleaning is done for most of the building… if you had arrived on time I could have given you a briefing of what you’ll be doing, but for now I’ll just get you your uniform and show you where equipment is. You start at seven thirty PM tomorrow night, and your name will be on rota lists by then.”

Ryan blinks, and then reaches up to flatten his hair down. Tries not to show his delight at not having to go through an interview. She obviously knows nothing of his past, and this can only work in his favor.

So he straightens, clears his throat and prays silently that he comes across as a Completely Sober and Ready to Work employee.

“Alright then, thanks.” He hesitates but asks, “You’re Sheryl Keiler, right?”

She rolls her eyes and turns on her heel, in a way that demands him to follow her.

He presumes that’s a ‘yes.’

 

+++

 

 

The next day he’s given the specific job details. He’s to work Tuesday to Friday, from seven thirty to ten thirty. He’s assigned one of the top floors, which is fucking convenient, and mostly he vacuums the desk areas and mops the bathrooms.

He’s watched like a hawk for the first few days by Sheryl, and he tries his best to stay as sober as he can. It’s hard though, it’s getting so hard.

“ _Ryaaaan_ Ross! Get up! Let me in! You have a J-O-B to be at in _three-zero_ minutes.”

Ryan is sprawled out on his mattress with a beer still clasped in his hand. His head feels funny, kind of static and fuzzy. He wonders distantly if whatever he had been drinking at the bar earlier was spiked with something.

Then he thinks of spiked gates and fences, like the one he fell off when he was younger, trying to break into someone’s house when he was fifteen. A mansion that he and a few others wanted to see up close. He doesn‘t think they were actually going to steal from it.

“Ryan! A _J-O-B! Undo_ the locks!”

He gets up shakily, and stumbles over to the door because at this stage he’s long since said goodbye to his motor functions. He unhinges the double padlocks to let William in so evidently he has lost control of his cerebral functions too.

William’s stoned, as far as Ryan’s blurry vision can perceive. William braces his long hand against the doorjamb and peers into Ryan’s eyes.

“Shit, man, how bad are you?” he wonders as he walks Ryan backwards into the house and sneakily removes the beer from his hand. Ryan barely notices.

“You can’t go to work like this, Ross. I’m gonna call in sick for you.”

It takes Ryan a second to catch up with what William’s talking about.

“What? No, what? No, William. I’m fine, so fine.” He waves his hands and demonstrates by pacing as carefully and as gracefully as he can. He has no idea if it works.

“Fuck off. I’m _calling_ , who do I _call_?” He starts pointlessly searching through piled up bills on Ryan’s kitchen table.

Ryan frantically tries to push William out of his apartment. This is much easier than it typically would be as William is loose boned and high.

“I’m fine man, no worries. I’ll eat a hotdog and have some water.”

He shoves him out the door and shuts it blindly. He can hear the shouted protests but doesn’t process them.

Thoughts dancing, he steadies himself against the kitchen table, palms down. He’s sweating, and half his brain is telling him to go find the beer again and the other insists on the hotdog.

He’s losing, he feels like he’s losing. But William bangs on the door, and he remembers what game he’s in at least.

 

+++

 

 

 

It’s ten thirty, and he’s high above ground, mopping bathroom floors dejectedly.

Most people have cleared off since it was Friday and everyone worked a little quicker to get everything done a little earlier. When he goes down to clock out on time so Sheryl doesn’t think he’s slacking, it’s obvious that most floors are deserted.

He had to head back up to continue working because he wasn’t even nearly finished. This was mostly due to the alcohol in his system still, so he’s been moving at snail pace in hope that it doesn’t show. He downed two coffees on his way in and the caffeine is wearing off by now.

The bathrooms are a deep, deep blue and go on forever, cubicle after cubicle. The smell of toilet bleach, someone else’s job, is beginning to make his head spin. Like his head wasn’t suffering enough.

After another slow few minutes he carelessly throws his mop into the bucket again and still semi-drunkenly climbs on top of the radiator by the wall. There’s a small but fairly wide window that he pushes open and leans his head out. The view is impressively drab – just the back of more office complexes on the street over.

He picks his cigarette packet and his lighter out of his pocket. He tilts back inside to light up, and then quickly ducks his head and arms back out again into the cold. His brown uniform fleece is the warmest thing he’s worn in months.

He tries to make it quick, forcing his lungs to cooperate.

“What the _fuck_?!”

Ryan jumps, his head banging painfully against the top of the window frame. The cigarette falls from his fingers.

Swearing and clutching his neck in pain, he twists around on his precarious spot on the radiator, and his mouth falls open with disbelief.

It’s the _boy_ , that fucking kid who keeps appearing everywhere. The kid who did his eye in all those weeks ago. He’s even dressed similar to before – tight jeans and some branded pullover.

“What the hell?” Ryan barks back. “Are you fucking stalking me? You shouldn’t be in here!”

He desperately blinks several times but the kid is still there, still real.

The intruder snorts dismissively but is clearly still shocked. He eyes the mop bucket and Ryan’s outfit. “Do you _work_ here?”

“What’s it to you?” He’s quick to get back down on the floor, and he holds himself as high as he can. “I don’t know what you want, but you can’t be in here. Offices are closed and off limits, you’re breaking and entering.”

The boy narrows his eyes. They’re dark brown, the darkest kind, and his hair is even shorter than he remembers it being before. His features are large, but proportionate. His mouth is –

“Shut the fuck up,” he bites viciously. “My father works here and so do I.” He pauses before adding, “Maybe you should refrain from smoking indoors.”

“Your dad works in here?” Ryan asks before he can stop himself. He blames the drink.

Predictably, the kid scowls and retorts, “What’s it to you?” and by now Ryan’s confusion has morphed into anger, his head still fucking hurting.

The boy starts backing up towards the door. “This city is too fucking small,” he mutters, and he’s gone. The blue-painted door barely makes a sound.

The bathroom is now empty. Feels emptier than it did before he even walked in.

“ _Shit_ ,” Ryan hisses out loud, kicking the mop bucket pathetically to release whatever had just built up inside of him in the space of the last two minutes.

It doesn’t do any good.

 

+++

 

 

For the next week Ryan sees nothing of Mr. Mysterious Stalker around the office or even in the city. He entertains the idea that maybe he really did imagine the whole bathroom incident, like some kind of horrible hangover hallucination. The boy though – the boy is real.

His face is insistently burned into his memory and it’s haunting him. When he’s sober, anyway.

William is trying to stop him. Turns up at the same bars as him and follows him home in the evening to make sure he makes no detours. He gives him disapproving looks whenever he’s drunk, and Ryan starts plotting murder. How come William is trying to stop him _now_? Has he gotten worse since he first arrived? He laughs to himself about it until he suddenly stops laughing, because William is an interfering asshole. He can’t get rid of him.

Except it’s hard to do that once he can’t think straight. It’s a Tuesday, and he’s pretty sure he had today off. William would have told him so anyway. He has no fucking problem telling Ryan what he thinks.

“I’m just worried, Ryan! You have a job now and you can’t risk – ”

William has a half-finished beer in his hand, which makes him a hypocritical bastard. Mike is here too, sprawled on the floor. If Mike is here… does that mean he’s in _William’s_ apartment? He doesn’t remember coming here, but clearly he’s gone beyond the stage of reason because he hasn’t left yet.

William’s right, he has a job now. “My job…” he starts, struggling. He’s lying back on the couch with one foot hanging off, and a wine bottle safely in his arms. “My job… hey, William, did I tell you about this Chicago kid who punched me?”

“We’re all Chicago kids. Except you,” Mike interrupts from the floor. William is sitting beside Mike and hits him aimlessly to get him to shut up. He looks up at Ryan in interest and exclaims, “No! You mean when you got that black eye?!” He looks delighted that Ryan is sharing. Ryan is anything but the tell-all-when-drunk type, but maybe he’s never been this drunk before in his life.

Then he starts cackling again because there’s no way that’s true. It’s hilarious to think about.

“Ryan!” William says impatiently. His disappointed pout is back. “Ryan, what were you saying about the kid?”

The kid? That fucking kid.

“He’s got brown eyes,” Ryan states, and swallows back more wine. He blinks. “He punched me, and then he was with the swans, and then in the bathrooms. The blue bathrooms.”

There’s a lull that goes on for a moment too long – William is looking at him like he has no idea what to say. Even Mike has sat up.

Then William’s eyebrows knit together dangerously, and Ryan is being dragged off the couch and the wine is taken from his grasp. “Mike, give me a hand,” William barks.

“Hey, wait no! Don’t touch me! I was comfy!” he struggles feebly but William and Mike haul him away from the couch and out the door, through another door, and it’s _cold_ all of sudden, and then he’s unceremoniously landing on a different couch. His stomach turns.

There’s the awful sound of cabinets opening and closing and bottles clinking. He’s back in his own apartment now, he knows that much.

“Fuck, it’s cold in here. You’ve no heating Ryan?”

Ryan can barely make out Mike in the semi-darkness but the street lights flash on his figure. He’s tall, like William.

“No he doesn’t,” William voice says. There’s a sound of a switch being flicked multiple times. “No fucking electricity either.”

Ryan knows this is when he should be telling them both to fuck off. “Fuck off,” he says, as sharply as he can from the couch.

Someone leaves the room, and then William is right beside him, peering into his face. “You need sleep. And no more alcohol.” A blanket is thrown over his skinny form when he shivers involuntarily.

“Goodnight,” William says, sounding further away now.

“Fuck off,” he repeats in a mumble, but there’s no one there to hear it.

 

+++

 

 

“The executives are on a week-long trip,” Sheryl tells him. “No one’s been in to clean since last week so you can go up and do their offices. They’re on floor twenty-two.”

Ryan’s about to say he _knows_ they’re on floor twenty-two, and he’s _sorry_ he didn’t show up for work on Tuesday. He was in a coma, he had to make an urgent trip to Oklahoma and there were no phone lines to contact her and tell her he wasn’t coming in to work.

He trails off to get his equipment and then brings it all the way up to the twenty-second floor. He finds the executive’s area pretty easily, even if he’s rarely been around. Everyone hates cleaning here due to the their habit of working late and therefore having to awkwardly clean around them. Sheryl appointed a couple of people to do it each week.

This week though, the row of large, glamorous offices were deserted. More than likely off gambling in Vegas and coining it as a work trip.

He vacuums and polishes and wipes computer screens and straightens out books on shelves. He smirks when he finds a disguised flipover porn calendar on one of the desks. Executive directors, huh?

The CEO’s office is at the end of the hall, somehow the most imposing. It has a plaque on the door that reads BOYD URIE and underneath, CEO.

Ryan pushes open the door and drags in the vacuum. He makes an impressed whistle under his breath – the office is unsurprisingly the most lavish of them all. The carpet is a deep purple, and there’s a sleek coffee machine that sits on another table in one corner, with a few bottles of scotch and whiskey that Ryan has to determinedly look away from. Behind the huge desk is just glass – he walks over to have a look out himself – and the view looks out on all of Chicago city, the lights from the skyscrapers sparkling in the night.

“Nice,” he breathes. He immediately hates this guy.

He vacuums first, and then starts wiping the desk and furniture, shoving notes and binders and memos and little glass figurines out of the way. He lifts up a frame to polish underneath and places it back, but then stops abruptly.

The photo in the frame is one of a woman, maybe in her early forties, with her arms wrapped around a boy. The background is mountainous and the blue sky takes up half the photo. It’s obvious they’re mother and son – they look inherently similar.

Same eyes, same mouth. They’re both smiling at the camera. The boy, maybe fourteen years old, has longish dark brown hair that hangs around his face.

Certainly not like it does now.

“What the fuck?” he splutters out loud. What the _fuck?_

He automatically takes a step back. Blinks. Walks back up to desk and picks up the frame. He flips it over and starts trying to unlatch the supporting plywood from the frame, and then pulls the photo out, doing his best not to rip or break anything. He turns the photo over, holding it by the edges.

His heart starts picking up pace rapidly – there’s writing. Sloppy handwriting that he has to squint to make out, but it’s there. It’s dated to several years back, along with, _Grace and Brendon, Lake Como, Italy._

He stops to process this information for several seconds, then puts the photo back in the frame, fixes the mess on the desk so it looks less like he’s been robbed, and drags his trolley and vacuum out of the room, shutting the door carefully behind him.

 _Brendon_ … he wheels around to the name plaque on the door. Urie? Brendon Urie?

He tells himself to stop thinking about it. Except he cannot.

He can’t stop thinking about it when he finishes up vacuuming the rest of the floor, when he’s on the train home, when he’s playing poker with Joey the homeless guy at the Englewood station, when he’s at some bar throwing his last dollar away on a drink.

“You ever been to Lake Como?” he shouts over the music to the bartender.

The bartender shrugs like he’s used to people spewing drunken questions out to him.

“No, but I’ve been to Lake Michigan.” He barks out laughter. “Same thing, right?”

 

+++

 

 

Christmas decorations in all their horrible tacky forms are hanging everywhere. Thankfully he can’t see them all that well as he wanders through floor twenty-two with his gear – most of the lights had been turned off in the hallways and no moonlight finds it’s way in. Ryan drags the vacuum cleaner at length, and shivers somewhere in his fleece.

His boss wasn’t going to let him go home until he had the main area of his floor vacuumed. He knew. His legs were tired and his eyes were sunk into his face, but he knew. Some things he had to be strong for. His paycheck, for example.

The lights are on here; it’s fluorescent, and his eyes sting. He plugs the vacuum in and starts cleaning grudgingly.

Strength – however – has never been his _thing_ , and only five minutes, seven minutes pass before he ducks down under one of the desks and sticks his hand into his jacket for his hip flask.

It’s just one sip. He’s already said those words today to William, but he’s right. It’s just one sip. Why add them all together and make conclusions?

When he ungracefully stands back up he does an automatic scan of the floor to make sure no one had seen him. In hindsight he should have checked properly before.

Big Brown Eyes is sitting on the other side of the huge room of desks, his feet tucked under him on a desk chair and his fingers typing quickly on a computer. His back is facing Ryan, but he knows it’s him. God, he knows straight away.

To have a name to a face feels strange. Or to a back, whichever. Brendon. He’s been saying it to himself the last couple of days, just in case he were to forget. Brendon.

If Brendon had turned around to see who was vacuuming before, he was going ahead and ignoring Ryan’s presence. Okay then, okay. He turns the machine back on again, and it feels too loud. Brendon still doesn’t move.

He keeps doing that as he gets closer, watches Brendon in the corner of one eye. He has no idea what he’s waiting for. Mostly he’s just confused – Brendon seems to be a constant contradiction of some previous form of him that Ryan thought he knew. The guy getting into a fight behind a club, the guy hunched over by the lake, the guy in the picture smiling with his mother, this guy right here in the office of one of the biggest corporations in the city –

Brendon’s yell over the vacuum cleaner makes his heart nearly jump out of his chest.

“Could you like, destroy the office in a _quieter_ way?”

The one thing all those versions of him share at least is complete and utter rudeness.

He opens and closes his eyes to focus his vision on the floor in front of him. He’s gone and vacuumed right into the stand of a miniature Christmas tree, which has fallen onto the water dispenser. There are tiny glittery baubles rolling away from him in all directions.

Brendon has now turned around in his seat to watch, a self-assured smirk on his face that Ryan immediately wants to punch away. God, he’s so arrogant. Everything about him is arrogant.

He ignores him to crawl down and straighten the tree, and starts grabbing at the decorations now littering the ground. What did he expect? Brendon’s just a rich kid playing on a computer at his dad’s office. He’s nothing. He’s not above Ryan in any way.

“Just to let you know, it wouldn’t take an idiot to miss the fact that you’re drunk.”

Ryan shoves a bauble onto the prickly plastic of the tree branch. He’s shaking with anger, or it’s whatever’s still flowing around his bloodstream. He doesn’t know. “Fuck off,” he finally hisses back in reply, and then gets up. He makes a conscious effort not to hold onto the water machine for support.

Brendon’s only a couple of yards away, and he’s swiveling on his chair. “I should report you. Drunkenness at work. You’d be gone in two seconds.”

Ryan knows he won’t. He can hear it: _But I’m not going to do that._

He just pulls the vacuum close again, turning the dial to increase the suction and make it louder. He’s not going near Brendon, and in a haze he vacuums aimlessly at the carpet that’s already clean. When he subtly turns his head again Brendon’s chair is empty.

He breathes again.

 

+++

 

 

The problem is: Brendon is fucking everywhere. He thinks _about_ him _,_ but never about what to do when and if he actually runs into him.

Ryan’s spaced out in a bar, which is supposed to look like an Irish pub but the resulting decor made it look more run down than it already is. He’s in a booth with a handful of guys he doesn’t really know, just from clubs and the train station and the liquor store. They’re all talking animatedly across the tops of their beers and every so often Ryan makes a halfhearted input to the conversation.

One of the men – a scruffy guy in his late twenties, Derek or Dylan – stretches across the table and says, in a voice that was probably supposed to be inconspicuous, “You all seen the twink at the bar yet?”

There is a chorus of drunken ‘no’s’ as everyone looks up to see who he’s referring to, and Ryan lets his eyes close as he rests his head against the linoleum of the seat. He’s not in the mood for pointless antagonizing when he’s this tired.

He flinches when someone hits him too hard on the arm. “Hey Ryan, he’s almost as tiny as you. Look at him dude!” Ryan blinks dizzily up at the bar; there’s two guys arm wrestling over ciders, and an elderly man who looks like he’s been on the barstool his whole life. Then there’s the bartender, a frown on his face while he reluctantly pours a drink for a young guy with dark, dark hair and skinny jeans.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

His head hits the seat again. Fuck it. His heart is beating faster, despite the alcohol.

Like always, he has no idea what Brendon’s doing – it’s a pretty shitty bar, in a shitty part of town, and he’s a good bit away from home. If he lives in the Loop, which Ryan is just assuming.

His pleasant company have now moved on from the previous topic, and Ryan’s eyes go back to Brendon again.

He wishes for the first time he was sober – if he was then he would have the judgment to realize that what he’s about to do is ridiculous. But he’s not sober, and the last time he and Brendon were in the same room he embarrassed himself pretty badly. And he needs to make that even somehow.

Not at his most graceful, he stands up in the booth, almost knocking his and other people’s drinks over in the process. He ignores the irritated protests and waits for someone to let him climb out. “I’m just, bathroom,” he says, and stumbles out. The sensible part of his brain, buried deep in the hoard of dead cells, tries to stop him. _It’s a bad idea, it’s a bad idea, Jesus, Ryan, it’s a bad idea._

Brendon’s seated up on one of the barstools, and Ryan pushes the one beside it away and taps Brendon on the shoulder. Brendon swivels his head around, eyes straight on his.

Ryan forgets what he was going to say for several embarrassing moments. He doesn’t remember, so he makes it up instead.

“Brendon Urie, son of… the CEO. What are you doing in a bar this shabby? Shouldn’t you be at business parties uptown?”

Brendon looks at him in shock. “What the fuck? How do you know that?” He narrows his eyes. “Who the fuck _are_ you?”

Ryan snorts, even though the question is somewhat insulting. He props his elbow up on the table and rests his chin on his hand. “I’m _Ryan_. I work at your father’s fancy office, and you punched me in the face back in the fall.” He recalls it suddenly, how he had to walk around with a black eye for ages after. “You asshole,” he adds, because he didn’t get to do that before.

Brendon no longer looks disbelieving, and now looks thoroughly irritated. He’s so close, Ryan thinks absently. He’s never been this close to him before.

“You also seem to be in a constant state of intoxication. The last thing I need or want is some alcoholic following me around the city. Goodnight, _Ryan_ ,” he mocks. Ryan, who is busy thinking of how that aforementioned case is not true, and how he was going to argue that, almost misses Brendon get up from his seat and throw change across to the bartender.

Walking away him from him again. Brendon pushes through a small group of people and marches out the door, and Ryan tries to brush off the stupid feeling he gets whenever Brendon does that. Like he’s been rejected.

Even when he’s drunk, he’s pathetic.

He glances over to the guys in the booth. None of them have really noticed him, but Jack was giving him a _“What the fuck, man?”_ look. Alright, okay. He was standing alone at the bar. The boy they had all been laughing at had just walked away from him.

No need to deal with explanations. He moves to follow Brendon out of the bar, discreetly trying to sneak out so his companions won’t protest. He hadn’t paid for his drinks, but fuck, they could do him a solid, just this once.

When he shoves the door open wide, the first thing he can process is the snow. Everything was white, and it would almost be pretty, Ryan thinks. It would almost be pretty, if it weren’t for the fight happening on the snow-covered pavement on the other side of the street.

God _dammit_.

Len and two other guys are there, one of which has Brendon in a tight headlock, and Ryan’s heart rate falters at the sight of Len punching Brendon viciously and repeatedly in the stomach and chest. Brendon’s putting up a fight, shouting and yelling in a futile way. He’s a small guy against much bigger ones. Ryan’s nauseous, and he’s drunk, he’s so drunk, but he clambers through the snow on the road and grabs at the guy doing the most damage – Len.

He catches him off guard, and Len swerves around to see who had a hold of his waist.

“What the fuck? Get off me, son of a bitch!” One of the other dudes pull him cleanly off Len, and Ryan’s skinny and useless body goes crashing into the snow, which softens the blow of the hard concrete.

“Shit, shit,” he says, and tries to scramble up, his hands trying to grip in the snow. He’s stopped completely by a foot on his shoulder, shoving his upper body back down onto the ground.

His eyes strain to see who’s standing dauntingly above him through the haze in his brain. He blinks rapidly and makes out Len. Len – who has his heavy boot rested on Ryan’s collarbone.

“Who’s this? Another fucking faggot I have to deal with?” Ryan tries his best to see over Len’s shoulder without lifting his head. Brendon’s still trapped by one of the taller guys, and is busy trying to trip him. But he’s okay, or at least he looks okay.

Ryan’s a dead man now, but at least he succeeded in one thing. Len is no longer trying to destroy all of Brendon’s internal organs.

“Look,” Ryan begins, and the rest of his sentence gets slurred into the ground as Len moves his foot from Ryan’s chest to his cheek and shoves it sideways onto the snow. “...Brendon and I have had our differences, sure, okay, but don’t hurt him.”

There’s a tiny second of silence, and then all three guys burst into laughter. Len gets down on the ground and pulls Ryan up by his shirt, and spits into his face, “Don’t worry, sunshine, you’ve stolen the fucking show.”

Ryan lasts almost two minutes, and then his snow white vision is dark again.

 

+++

 

 

There are five figures standing above him. He squeezes his eyes shut because to keep them open is too much work.

Of _course_ , he feels it all at the same time; the bright, throbbing pain all along his sides, his groin, his head. The cold. He’s fucking freezing – the feeling of the water dripping down his neck is making him shiver in spasms. His hair is soaked from the snow, and the water has seeped through his damn clothes too.

There’s murmuring above him, a bit of arguing. It seems somewhat like he’s been on this ground for an eternity. He sends brain commands to all his muscles to move. None of them respond.

Giving up, he figures it’s at least the most relaxed he’s felt in a long time. Maybe he could stay here until he eventually dies, which he has no doubt will soon happen anyway. He could just lie here in the snow and pass away without moving an inch. There probably wouldn’t even be funeral. Although William would want to have a funeral for him, he knows that for sure.

His eyes blink open again when he feels sudden breathing near his face. It’s one of the guys he was with in the bar, Dylan, gazing at him blankly.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’re alive.” He states this fact in a way that he might say, “It’s snowing.”

There’s movement, and then a few others are leaning down, affirming this statement. He’s alive. Oh fantastic, thank god.

“Someone should take him home,” a voice pops up from the back. It’s Brendon. He’s still alive then, too. Even better. “Which one of you will do it?”

There’s an awkward round of, “I really need to get home…” and “my train leaves in five…” and Brendon sighs exasperatedly.

“Jesus, I’ll do it then, I guess. Does anyone know where he lives?” Again, everyone shrugs. No one really knows him, and it shows.

Ryan is certain that if he was a little more sober and awake he would definitely be more offended at this spectacle. As it is, he manages to get out, “Well, the lucky news is, _I_ know where I live. So I’m all good.” He tries again to get up, and then hopefully storm off. He doesn’t need anyone to bring him home.

Except that his limbs still won’t move the way he wants, and his body feels too heavy. “Fuck,” he whispers, more to himself.

Predictably, the neighborhood guys shuffle away, mumbling weak apologies to Ryan’s prostrate body. He’ll probably never see them again. Not that it matters. What matters now is Brendon standing a little closer than before, inspecting the mess lying on the ground like he can’t believe this is what he’s gotten himself into. He sighs again.

“Well, at least you’re conscious,” he mutters, and then holds out his hand.

 

+++

 

 

Brendon drags Ryan home through the Englewood blocks, one of Ryan’s arms around his shoulders, and one of his own arms around Ryan’s waist. He’s effectively holding him up, but there’s no other way Ryan could walk – he hasn’t assessed the damage yet, but he can fucking feel it, and it’s blindingly sore. He can taste blood and drops of snow whenever his tongue touches his mouth.

One part of his sobering brain focuses on the stinging cold and pain – the other is trying to process Brendon’s proximity. He’s so, so close now. Even through the dizziness, it’s making him nervous.

They walk mostly in strained silence, broken by Ryan’s lazy directions to turn a corner every so often. The white streets are deserted, aside from the occasional homeless person at closed shop fronts. Ryan asks what time it is out loud, Brendon doesn’t bother answering.

Brendon is walking gingerly too, although he’s trying to hide it.

“Why,” Ryan says, “why do you even hang out in this shitty part of town? Where Len is?” The question’s been killing him since he found out who Brendon was. Maybe since he saw him for the first time.

Brendon shifts his shoulder under Ryan’s arm, and he tries to catch his breath to speak. “I don’t know… I ended up out here one time when I got on the train and didn’t bother getting off at my stop. I got into… an altercation with Len at some club I walked into, he told me to stay away from him, away from ‘his’ part of town.”

He flashes a sardonic smile that Ryan can’t see. “No one tells me what to do, you know.”

“Of course not,” Ryan mumbles. He’s busy thinking about how this is the first time Brendon’s said something to him that isn’t some sort of snarling insult. Pathetic.

“Is this your building?” Brendon asks, breaking Ryan’s thoughts. Ryan looks up and wearily confirms that yes, this is his building, don’t look too impressed. They stagger inside and out of the snow.

Brendon stops in the concrete foyer, slightly out of breath as he looks around hopelessly. “There’s no elevator,” he says, states it like a fact.

“Duh, what do you think this is, the Hilton?”

Brendon grimaces and takes a breath before reconnecting himself to Ryan and starting them up the stairs. A few minutes and several sets of staircases later he mutters, “I definitely do not think this is the Hilton.”

Ryan’s too cold to start mocking Brendon for being rich and out of place.

They get to fourth floor with much struggle, and Ryan expects Brendon to dump him on the graffiti-covered landing and run for his life. He starts to shrug out of his grip, but Brendon, to Ryan’s surprise, keeps walking.

“Number?”

Ryan frowns for a second. “Four oh five.”

Brendon stops when they get to it, and Ryan lets them in, taking five times longer than usual to unlock the door. He knows he should be embarrassed to let Brendon see the squalor of his living conditions, but he couldn’t care less. Not tonight at least.

“Nice,” Brendon says as they enter, in tone that suggests he does not mean nice at all.

They limp over to the couch, and Brendon unhooks Ryan’s arm and sets him down on the seat. Ryan starts trying to peel his jacket off without moving too many muscles, and when he looks up Brendon is feeling along the walls for a light switch. Ryan closes his eyes and prays quickly to whatever higher power there is that the landlord hadn’t cut his electrics off yet this month.

“Fuck, finally,” Brendon mutters from across the room. The tiny apartment flickers to semi-brightness.

He wanders back over, and stands awkwardly for a moment like he no longer knows what to do. Ryan twitches on the couch, flicks a piece of wet hair out of his face.

“Well thanks for helping me home, I guess. I’ve tried to save your ass twice now, just so you know. The first time you had a good swing at me. So this was slightly more friendly of you, thanks.”

Brendon just snorts. “I think you should just learn when to not get involved.” He sits down on the sofa beside Ryan. He’s only comfortable when he’s being annoyingly condescending.

“Alright, okay,” he says quietly, trying to ignore his chattering teeth. “Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t believe that if I hadn’t gone over to you, Len would have kept going until you were unconscious too.”

Brendon doesn’t answer straightaway. “Maybe,” he gives. His damn eyes turn to Ryan and he gestures at his stomach, shivering with the rest of his body. “Don’t you wanna see the damage?”

Ryan raises his eyebrow. “Don’t you wanna go back home to Blackfield Incorporated?”

Brendon presses his teeth together. “It’s Blackfeld Corporation. And as much as I’d love to be somewhere warmer than twenty degrees right now, I can’t really leave you like this.”

Ryan still has no idea why he’s bullshitting, but maybe he’s avoiding home. Maybe he’s waiting for it to stop snowing. Either way, he’s fucking confused. And he can look after himself, thanks.

He firmly ignores the tiny part of him that wants Brendon to stay a little longer.

“Len gave up soon after you passed out but it was still pretty nasty. It was painful to _see,_ man,” Brendon says to his shoes.

Ryan’s anger is quick to return. “God, that motherfucker,” he breathes, and unzips his hoodie. His shirt is a little drier than the rest of his clothes, but there’s no way he can take it off without his body screaming in objection. His arms fall limply on his lap, and he looks at Brendon without really meaning too.

Brendon hesitantly edges closer. “How will I do this? Wait, I’ll pull it over from the back so you can keep your arms where they are.” He manages to get the T-shirt off Ryan with minimal added pain. The awkwardness of their near proximity vanishes when Brendon hisses sharply, gaze focused on Ryan’s torso.

“Fuck.”

Ryan looks down to scan his body. Bruises have already started to blossom across his ribcage, radiating down the side of his waist. It’s yellow and black and purple and blue. He presses a finger to his skin and it stings like hell.

“Fuck.” He agrees.

Brendon has subconciously moved closer, his eyes wide and worried. He looks like he wants to reach out and touch too, but his hands stay clutched on Ryan’s wet shirt. Brendon’s eyes shift up to look at him, and from this angle Ryan can see his eyelashes, could count them all.

“What about your head?” Brendon inquires, throwing Ryan off balance, again.

“My head?” He instinctively raises his hand up to his forehead, pushes his damp fringe back.

“Yeah, your head,” Brendon says, in his you’re-an-idiot voice. “He only punched you in the temple a couple hundred times.”

He can hear it now, when he pauses. The bang, bang, bang in his skull. Funny how he’s only noticing that now.

The alcohol must be wearing off.

Brendon sits back, contemplating, and Ryan grabs the old blanket from behind him on the couch, still shivering when he wraps it around his shoulders. His jeans are wet and heavy and probably making the fabric couch wet too. But there’s no way he’s taking them off until Brendon gets his ass out of his house.

He himself is still in his warm winter jacket, not a freckle out of place.

“Aren’t you gonna _leave_?”

Brendon blinks. “You look like fucking shit.”

Ryan grits his teeth. “Thanks. Piss off now.”

Brendon sighs dramatically. “I mean, I can’t leave until you at least _look_ like someone who is still alive, and not like, on the verge of death.”

Mr. Inconsistent wanders off to find some towels in the bathroom, his disparaging remarks about the state of the place just loud enough for Ryan to hear. He walks out, waving a towel above his head. “The only one clean,” he says.

The towel in question gets unceremoniously thrown over Ryan’s head. “Can you dry your hair yourself or will I help?” Brendon asks.

“I can do it with one arm,” he grumbles in reply.

“Do you have any spare clothes somewhere?”

Ryan’s busy slowly trying to rub his hair and the towel is obscuring his vision. “There should be some on the chair,” he says, voice muffled.

When he pulls the towel off, Brendon is sitting beside him again, a dry white T-shirt in his hands. He helps him put it on, and his fingers brush over Ryan’s skin more than twice at least. Ryan notices. Brendon has to have noticed too.

Aren’t you gonna…” Brendon waves vaguely at Ryan’s trousers. Ryan sighs, and then reclines back to undo his fly and try and kick the jeans off. His boxers aren’t exactly dry either, but he’s fucking leaving them on.

“What about you? I show you my damage, you gotta show me yours,” he half-jokes, while his eyes distractedly scan the floor for any unfinished bottles he’s left lying around. He can’t be sober, not _now._ The thought terrifies him.

Brendon prods at his own torso and winces. “It’s just this side of my ribs, I think.” He puts his hands back in his pockets. “I’m fine. It’s too damn cold to take off any layers unecessarily.”

Ryan wraps the blanket around his shoulder again. He’s somewhat used to the constant cold. Usually, however, he’s dry, and warmed by drink.

“You got any painkillers?” Brendon asks. “Your head is gonna hurt like a bitch when you wake up.”

Ryan laughs under his breath. “Painkillers, yeah. Gotta fridge full of beer and ale.”

Brendon narrows his eyes like he’s not sure whether to believe that or not. “You’re joking,” he says flatly.

“Well maybe not a _full_ fridge.” He presses a finger up to his temple. “Could you get me something actually?”

Brendon stands up, and something like appreciation passes through Ryan, until Brendon actually opens the fridge and gapes.

“Fuck, you’re not joking.” He slams the door closed, the sound making Ryan wince, and starts opening cabinets and drawers. “Fuck, you have no fucking food!”

Ryan rolls his eyes from the couch. Has no idea why Brendon is getting so worked up about the fact. He’s like a less crazed version of William.

Then he pressses his fingers harder against his temple to burn that thought.

“Oh wait, sorry,” Brendon exclaims sarcastically from the corner of the kitchen, “a stale packet of Reeses and tinned beans. Fuck. How do you _live_?”

Ryan’s done this spiel enough times to know that answering that question is not going to placate the situation.

“I eat,” he says at length. His head bangs insistently now. “If you want to play good Samaritan with someone who has a fully stocked pantry and underfloor heating then maybe call in somewhere else. Maybe try your area of this motherfucking city.”

Brendon doesn’t answer, just closes the cabinet carefully and walks around the kitchen table.

“You know what, I never checked to see if you had concussion. How many fingers am I holding up?”

Ryan glares, and rests his head against the back of the seat. “Four.”

“And how do you know all the information about me? My name?” He walks closer now, asks it like he genuinely wants to know the answer.

Ryan sighs and shuts his eyes, gives up. “I cleaned your dad’s office. Saw the photo of you on his desk.” He opens them again to watch Brendon. He’s staring back at him incredulously. “He has a photo of me on his _desk_?”

“Well, you and your mom. I assume is your mom.”

Brendon still stares at him widely, then finally nods distantly, his eyes darkening. Whatever, then. Trouble in paradise. He really wants some ale. A whiskey, preferably, but only William can afford that shit.

“Look, if you won’t get me a bottle, could you at least help me to the fridge?”

Brendon frowns furiously again in disbelief. “Fuck, you’re the youngest alcoholic I’ve literally ever seen. It’s fucking depressing.”

Ryan’s not an alcoholic, but he ignores that for now. His icy look returns full-force. “Fuck you, I’m almost twenty-two. Just because you’re still in the twelvth grade.”

“I’m twenty. Old enough to know when I’m looking at someone fucked up.” Brendon sits back down beside him, huffing and pretending to be angry, at _what,_ Ryan has no idea.

But he’s deliberately close now.

He _would_ like to think he’s judged Brendon right. He’s not usually wrong when it comes to these things.

“You’re an asshole,” he says, and Brendon’s eyes twitch like he’s going to argue, but nothing comes out. Good.

“You’re an asshole,” he says again, quieter this time. He could say it forever. Instead, he reaches out with his good arm, cups the side of Brendon’s jaw and brings his mouth to his. And Brendon opens, responds. Finally.

He knew it was coming.

He’s quick to work his tongue into Ryan’s mouth, tasting, and Ryan sucks on it just to see how he reacts. A hand runs up the side of his thigh and they press closer still, even though the angle is fucking sore, his ribs and shoulders protesting in pain.

Brendon seems to agree as he starts to gradually push Ryan back, back until his upper body is lying flat on the couch, and Brendon ducks down to kiss him properly again.

But then he sits up, suddenly, and Ryan watches his fingers as he tries to unzip his huge jacket. Fuck, _finally._

“Your mouth tastes like ash,” Brendon points out frankly as he throws his jacket carelessly onto the armrest. He lifts one of Ryan’s legs onto the couch so he can crawl in between. “And alcohol. It’s disgusting.”

“I’m disgusting?” The fucker is back over him again, his elbows holding him up.

“Yeah,” Brendon replies in a murmur and kisses him, down his jaw, his neck, down to the collar of Ryan’s T-shirt. He pauses, and then retreats back up, sucking on his collar bone. Ryan’s breathing is heavier now, and his hands run up Brendon’s back under his shirt, hiking it up.

“Off,” he mumbles, and Brendon complies, pausing his effort of adding even more bruises to Ryan’s chest to pull the shirt over his head.

A shiver flickers through Brendon as Ryan runs his cold fingers over him, everywhere he can at least. He’s bruised, like Ryan suspected, just not as bad as him. They’re more like spots of bruises, concentrated on his left ribcage. He’s suprisingly toned – Ryan’s just skin and bones.

But Brendon actually has a shape, and Ryan can’t stop touching. The broken voice in his head keeps playing the same thing, _Ryan this is such a such a such a bad idea._

Brendon’s kissing him again. Which is nice, and he could stay just like this, he could, but then Brendon’s hand is cupping him through his boxers, and he’s not even shocked to feel himself half-hard already.

Brendon palms the head, torturously slow, but doesn’t go any further, like he’s waiting for something. It’s suddenly fucking annoying.

Ryan breaks away from his mouth. “Bed,” he decides firmly.

Brendon raises his eyebrow as he sits up. “That’s what you call a bed?” He’s been waiting to use that one for sure.

Ryan stands up, shakily. “Shut the fuck up,” he says, and pushes Brendon down onto the mattress. He’s on top now. Fuck Brendon.

“And fuck you,” he adds, collapsing as delicately over Brendon as he can and adjusting his body so his bruises aren't pressing against anything.

“You can, if you want,” Brendon whispers. His hands come around Ryan’s neck, into his still-damp hair.

That’s it, then.

“Fuck,” Ryan gets out, and they’re at each other again, pulling, taking, biting, and Brendon has Ryan’s and his own underwear off before Ryan can register it.

“You’re ready,” Brendon says under his breath in slight marvel. His fingers close around Ryan’s dick reverently. Yeah, yeah, he knows.

“You’re not though,” Ryan murmurs, pushing Brendon’s legs further apart. He looks around the room but can’t think of anything he can use to help. Could never think very effectively anyway when someone was jerking him off.

“It’s fine, just use spit,” Brendon breathes against the skin on his neck.

Ryan nods. "Kay," he says quietly, and presses Brendon back so he can push two fingers into his mouth.

Brendon’s eyes shoot open and he looks like he’s about to protest, but Ryan keeps them there, insistent, until Brendon gives in, wraps his lips around them properly and sucks.

Ryan stares, his vision slightly hazy, and is only reminded of the task at hand when Brendon grabs his wrist and pulls them out himself. Ryan shakes his grip off and reaches down between Brendon’s thighs.

“When was the last time you did this?” he asks. He keeps the pads of his fingers pressed against his hole.

“It’s fine,” Brendon manages, sounding pissed off, which is not really an answer, but Ryan only pushes one in anyway. He’s tight, like he thought, and Brendon raises his hips to give Ryan a better angle.

“Fucking, christ,” Brendon gasps out, breath catching as Ryan presses his index finger past the muscle too. He tries to get a rhythm going, which is not easy with the limited amount of saliva, and he starts crooking the top of his fingers on the slide in.

Brendon’s breathing steadily becomes labored, and his hips try to jerk in time with Ryan’s fingers. Just when Ryan is certain he has the right angle he pulls them out, ignores Brendon’s whine and spits into his hand, running it over his dick impatiently.

“Like this, yeah?” he asks, hitching Brendon’s legs up and moving closer while trying not cause any more bodily damage. It’s not really a question, but Brendon nods, wrapping his legs around Ryan’s waist, lower than the bruises, and Ryan appreciates the effort.

He supports himself on his elbow so he can line up his dick properly, and his mouth is on Brendon’s chest, mouthing distractedly. When he’s in almost halfway his breath stutters and momentarily stops, and Brendon’s fingers wind almost painfully in Ryan’s hair. “Don’t,” he chokes, “don’t just stop.”

“Not,” Ryan says, and his hands grapple for a proper grip on the sheet.

It’s just slow, shallow thrusts until he gets deeper, and his mouth covers Brendon everywhere he can reach. The boy under him moans softly on every thrust in, and sweat has started to dot his body, but Ryan can’t seriously tell if he’s enjoying himself. Brendon’s frustratingly hard to read like that.

But then his eyes open, Mr. Big Brown Eyes, and it takes a few seconds for him to focus on Ryan’s face but when he does Ryan swears his own hips falter for a second.

Ryan stops kissing him in favor of watching him, the way his head slides up the mattress, his eyes fluttering closed when Ryan pushes in deep.

He’s not happy.

“It’s just, we need…” Brendon trails off, breathing heavy, and Ryan knows, he knows. He stops moving for a moment to reach behind Brendon’s head and grab his pillow, shoves it under Brendon’s hips. He thrusts experimentally. “That better now?”

Brendon doesn’t answer, just curses and pulls him back down again. The angle _is_ substantially better. His dick starts pressing Brendon in the right place, and he rocks faster, Brendon moving in counterpoint.

Brendon’s hands tremble down from Ryan’s hair to clasp at his shoulders, and they’re both sweating now, whatever composure they had starting to vanish. Brendon’s leg bangs against his wounded side with every movement, but the pain is fucking secondary when he’s this turned on.

Everything else is secondary when Brendon is underneath him like this.

He’s half-aware of Brendon fisting his cock with quick strokes, and if he didn’t need to hold his body up he’d jerk him off himself. Wants to do that.

But as it is he can no longer support himself. His body shakes, and his mouth moves on its own accord. “Fuck.” It’s all he can say. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He gets there before Brendon, every muscle tense and then he’s gone, toes curling as he groans into Brendon’s shoulder.

His body keeps moving, and the boy beneath him comes so quietly that Ryan barely notices. It’s only when his own hips slow down and he can feel the weight of Brendon’s legs disappear from his back is he able to open his eyes and come back down to the present moment.

Brendon’s got his own eyes shut, collapsed onto the mattress and breathing like he’s just run a marathon. It always fucking feels like it.

Once he has control of his hips again he pulls out, Brendon choking out a breath as he does so. Ryan snags an old shirt lying on the floor and wipes it clumsily over Brendon’s navel, who only shivers in response.

They blink at each other for a long minute, and then Brendon scoots over to the left so Ryan can fall down beside him. The cars are a distant murmur below, and their panting fills the room completely. He never even bothered taking his fucking shirt off; he can see spots of Brendon’s come on it. A work of art.

His hands reach out and he ungracefully pulls his boxers back on with one hand, and then attempts to maneover the blanket so its somewhat covering both of them.

Five, six minutes pass before Brendon is sitting back up. He steadies himself to his feet and begins putting back on all his items of clothing; his boxers, his jeans, his shirt and his pullover.

The weak artifical light does him no justice, Ryan thinks idly.

He waits for Brendon to wheel around and walk out the door, a hasty “thanks for the fuck” over his shoulder, but he surprises Ryan again as he turns around and kneels back down on the mattress, puts the old pillow under his head and lies down on his back. Their arms down touch. Their legs don’t touch.

Ryan closes his eyes to hide his smile. Okay, sure, fine, whatever.

 

+++

 

 

It’s four thirty in the morning. He can tell from the red numbers on the microwave in the kitchen.

Usually he passes out immediately after a decent orgasm, but he’s been awake since. The high has long faded and his brain is crying out for alcohol, something to numb the flaring pain all over his body.

But he can’t do it, not now.

He blinks over at Brendon, unable to make out the details of his features but can tell that his eyes are closed. The lights went out soon after Brendon fell asleep. Either the fuse blew or the landlord shut them off. Either one.

“Are you Jewish?” a murmured whisper comes suddenly from Brendon’s mouth.

Ryan jumps, just slightly. He was under the impression Brendon was _asleep_. “What? No. _What?_ ” he hisses back.

“Christmas,” Brendon whispers, his voice slurred with drowsiness. “Do you celebrate Christmas?”

“No,” he says blankly, confused and agonizingly trying to understand Brendon’s thought processes. “I haven’t celebrated Christmas since... a while now.”

Brendon hums under his breath. “I figured that, since you’ve no decorations up or anything.”

Ryan laughs – he can’t help it. “Yeah, ‘cause decorating my place is on my top list of priorities.”

“You know today is Christmas? Eve, I mean.”

Ryan’s still hugely confused. Who fucking cares that it’s Christmas?

“Christmas happens every year,” he voices to the ceiling. “What, I bet you have a stocking on the fireplace with your name on it, and a chef serving up mince pies on the hour.” He laughs lowly with no humor.

“You don’t know shit about me,” Brendon hisses suddenly. He turns around onto his side, faces the wall. “Merry freaking Christmas,” he mutters under his breath.

Ryan stares at his back, speechless. Mr. Fucking Crazy.

Brendon’s here, in his bed, his sad, pathetic excuse of a bed, but he’s so fucking far away that he’s not even in Chicago. Ryan’s fingers flex uselessly.

He’s right – Ryan doesn’t know him at all.

“Why are you _here_?” he whispers, and it’s a genuine question.

Brendon’s back stays completely still.

 

+++

 

 

He finds a packet of cigarettes, much to his victory. He sits on the window ledge, shivering to death for almost half the day, chain-smoking and pretending not to hear the bangs on his door from William.

Brendon had scampered off at some stage in the early morning, which was largely unsurprising. When Ryan woke up the apartment looked exactly the same as it always did, although he’s not sure what else he was expecting. Besides the stains on his sheets and shirt and purple and black bruises all over his torso, it was like he had never run into Brendon last night at all.

He keeps smoking.

It was a fucking _cold_ Christmas Eve, if what Brendon said was true. The snow starts up again around noon, so much so that Ryan is forced to climb back inside, inwardly gasping at the pain while doing so.

He puts on three of his limited supply of shirts (with great struggle, and doesn’t think of Brendon’s hands on him) and then his work fleece, and turns on the TV disinterestedly. He can almost see his breath, and he contemplates the prospect of dying of pneumonia again.

William manages to get in the door eventually, his methods unbeknownst to Ryan. He’s got two bottles of prepared mulled wine bundled under his arm.

“Ryan Ross, good to see you in layers,” he nods. He strides in happily and dumps them on the shaky table.

“I thought you were trying to stop me from drinking?” Ryan asks. He already has one popped open.

“Does this count?” He looks stricken for a second, and then shrugs. “Oh well, it’s Christmas! No, no, no, you have to drink mulled wine from _glasses_. It’s classy.”

“Fuck classy,” Ryan interjects, mouth around the bottle.

William ignores him and gets a glass for himself. “It’s crazy cold in here,” he remarks, pouring out the wine on the kitchen countertop. “You know, if it does get too cold, me and Mike–”

“S’fine dude. I’m completely used to it.”

William doesn’t press the issue. Christmas specials are playing on every channel, and he throws himself on Ryan’s sofa while Ryan lies back down on his mattress. Tries not to move his muscles or any other part of his body.

“Ooh, _It’s a Wonderful Life_ is on, Ross, keep it on.”

Ryan flings the remote onto mattress and closes his eyes tiredly. Brendon said it best.

Merry freaking Christmas.

 

+++

 

 

 

_Chicago, 2010_

In January the temperature drops even further below zero, and he starts sprinting from the train to the office to get the hell out of the bitter wind.

He doesn’t see Brendon. Hasn’t seen him since Christmas Eve, in fact.

Which in one way was annoying – he had a good line to tell him when he saw him next – “Hey, I slept with an executive’s son, does that make me a career climber?”

Maybe he’s drunk. He’s possibly always drunk. Sheryl’s been keeping a sharper eye on him lately, so maybe she’s noticed something. William had commented that he was getting worse the other day. But that was _William_.

William worried like it was his job.

“You’re moving all funny recently,” he idly points out when they’re both sheltering on the fire escape of their building, sharing a joint. Their hands are so cold that they almost drop it several times.

Ryan doesn’t answer, just gives a non-committal hum as he blows out smoke. He hasn’t told William what happened outside the bar. He’d freak the fuck out on him, and that was the last thing he wanted. He had enough of it every day.

“No, you are. You’re walking like you’ve just been fucked up the ass.” He eyes him seriously. “Have you?”

Ryan glares back at him. “No. My side is sore, okay? Must have slept funny or something. Like I’d even _tell_ you if I did, what the fuck?”

William takes this as admission. “Mike said he saw someone leave your apartment back at Christmas. A guy.” His eyes widen like he’s just remembering this now, and then sounds deeply offended that he was not informed about this from Ryan. “Whats up with him? Who is he? Is he your boyfriend? Are you fucking on the _regular_? Can I meet him?”

Ryan snatches the blunt from William’s fingers and inhales deeply when he takes a drag. “You’re insane. It was just someone fixing my radiator.”

William laughs then, a proper belly laugh that has him clutching the metal railing on the escape.

“See, if you had told me it was your dealer or something, I would have believed you. But absolutely no way did you have a _maintenance_ guy in your apartment. On _Christmas Eve._ You lose, Ross.”

Ryan sucks on the joint one last time and stubs it out on the railing. He’s a little stoned, a little drunk. It’s the start of January. He’s surprised he’s still standing.

“I lose,” he says, monotonuous as ever. He buries his hands in his pockets and turns to climb back in the half-open window, into the abandoned apartment upstairs.

“But wait!” William yells. He’s still out on the snow-covered escape, doesn’t bother following him inside. “You never told me if you were dating!”

Ryan keeps walking.

 

+++

 

 

 

When he gets up to his usual floor at work, he makes a decisive detour by turning left to head down the executive’s corridor. There’s some staff still hanging around in the assistants office, and the printer is quietly whirring in the photocopying room. He walks as inconspicuously as he can with his cleaning trolley, shrinks into his fleece that’s two sizes too big.

The door is open. Ryan slows his pace a tiny bit as he walks further up the corridor and glances in lightening fast when he passes.

Mr. CEO is there. All he sees is a man with graying hair, hunched over his desk. Didn’t notice much else.

But he’s there. Not on some post-Christmas skiing vacation in the Alps with the family.

Which begs the question that Ryan has been trying to suppress.

Where the fuck was Brendon?

He pushes his cart back to main area, trying to think seriously. Chicago’s a big fucking city. The fact he ran into Brendon as much as he did was strange. He might not even see him again, if Brendon avoids skulking around his dad’s empire.

Probably best they didn’t interact again. Brendon’s fucking infuriating, and his choices questionable. He deeply regrets sleeping with him already.

A couple of other cleaners buzz past him with vacuums, so he gets out the polishing cloth and starts cleaning systematically, pretending that the pounding in his head does not exist. The coffee and vodka mix he had downed before coming had not gone down well.

“Wake up, Ryan,” laughs Lydia, one of the other cleaners around his age, probably older. She was pretty in a sort of unconventional way, with her hair scraped back into a ponytail. When he doesn’t reply she stops polishing the opposite desk to look at him concernedly.

“Definitely awake,” Ryan blinks, smiles, tries to make it a joke. “Hey Lydia, why don’t we go out for a drink? Tonight? To celebrate… Thursday?”

She raises an eyebrow. “I think you should be going home to _sleep_. You look pretty ill.”

Ryan straightens and tries to look as alive as possible. “I’m fine, it’s just… insomnia, you know?”

She still looks apprehensive, but Ryan can see her face soften when she decides not to argue with him. “Okay then,” she says, and gives him a half smile. “Fine, I’ll go out tonight.”

“Cool,” he smiles back. Lydia turns around to go clean the bathrooms, her ponytail bouncing. “Fantastic,” he says distantly. “Great.”

Ryan’s pulled back into reality when a man rounds the corner suddenly on the other side of the room, who Ryan recognizes from his earlier glimpse – Mr. Urie, CEO, _Boyd_. He’s talking to a much smaller guy beside him who has stacks of papers in his hands, almost covering his whole face. The taller guy that Ryan’s eyes try to focus on is probably in his fifties somewhere, and as they walk closer Ryan can see better. He’s got dark eyes and eyebrows and that nonplussed, arrogant facial expression that Ryan is starting to vaguely recognize.

He keeps wiping the already-clean computer screen with his cloth. The pair walk through the doors at Ryan’s end, and they’re gone.

“Fantastic,” he repeats to no one.

 

+++

 

 

“Do you ever like, regret it though?” she asks.

He rushes down another shot of his mixer. “Regret what?”

“ _College_ ,” Lydia says. “I mean, do you not wonder what your life would be like now if you’d stayed there?”

He shrugs and glances around the bar. It’s more uptown than he’s used to, and pop music is thundering in his ears. He’s twitching slightly, and hopes she doesn’t notice.

“Yeah, I guess. But, you know, it just… wasn’t for me.”

“Yeah. I guess you have to do what feels right for you,” she replies. She looks down at her glass wistfully. “I wish I could go… I’m saving up, you know.” She looks back up. “Which college were you in anyway?”

He searches his useless brain for an answer. “Uh… Chicago State?”

Lydia nods like he’s asking her if she knew of it. He briefly contemplates if its even believable that an idiot like him could get into CSU. He gestures at the bartender for another drink.

“Which… course were you doing?” she questions while she eyes his drink disdainfully. He wonders why the fuck everyone does that.

“Oh, Philosophy. I was gonna major in Philosophy.” He’s walking on thin ice here. But Lydia is talking again, thank god, something to do with whatever course she plans to do, and he keeps drinking. His other hand grabs a handful of peanuts from the little bowls on the barcounter. He chews slowly and tries to listen to her, but it gets harder every second.

It takes him a couple of beats too long to realise she’s asked him another question. Her face is torn between disgust and worry when she gives up the conversation and leans in close to say, “Should you really keep drinking?”

He laughs too loud. “Why not? Don’t worry, I’m not driving. What were you saying before?”

Instead of answering, her perfect brows furrow together and she swirls her beer around, only her second one since they got here, and she sighs. She _sighs_ – he can see it, rather than hear it. She’s pissed off. Great.

Unfortunately it is at that very second when his waif of a body convulses, and an insant feeling of nausea takes over. _Fuck_ , fuck, fuck. He tries to remember the last time he had eaten, but fails. The peanuts were the first in a while. _Fuck_. Without bothering to explain the situation to his date he quickly hoists himself off the stool, with a hand out to push people out of the way as he staggers to the other end of the bar.

He falls into the mensroom, and doesn’t have time to get to a toilet before he throws up into the sink. His hands scrabble at the cold tile in front of him, and he’s glad there’s no mirror. God, he’s fucking glad.

He breathes for a moment, silently thanking the emptiness, and pushes his fringe off his sweating face. Fuck it. He throws cold water at his eyes and into his mouth, and starts for the door again, trying to walk straight.

More people have gathered in the space outside the bathrooms and he barely has the strength or energy to shove his way back to the bar. When he does get there, Lydia has unsurprisingly disappeared. He does an automatic sweep around the bar with his eyes, but he knows it’s pointless. She’s gone, of course. Of course.

He sits back up on the stool again gingerly, and his fingers reach out to drag his drink close to his chest. When he lifts his gaze up the bartender is giving him a condescending look that clearly reads, _Way to go, man._

He stares pointedly back at his drink again.

He’s not entirely sure why he asked her out in the first place. It’s not like he had plans to further their relationship, although he’d be lying if he said the idea of taking her home hadn’t crossed his mind. But then he remembers he couldn’t do that _anyway_ , because his home is not a home, but rather a trash pit that he sleeps in.

Brendon didn’t seem to have major issues with it. Well, he did, but he still stayed. He stayed. For a while at least.

Ryan takes an experimental sip of his drink and his stomach immediately protests. In anger and intoxication he slams it back down on the table, liquid spilling over the side. Half of him is annoyed at his ridiculous body, the other half irritated that the thought of Brendon had even entered his brain.

God, he’s an idiot.

A glass of water is suddenly set down in front of him, and he straightens on his stool. The bartender, again.

“Drink that, and go home. You’re going to barf all over my bar if you don’t,” he yells over the music, and then moves on to another customer.

Ryan blinks. He’s been kicked out of bars before, for many different reasons, but never with a glass of water first. In defiance, he wrestles his jacket on, grabs the water and marches out, glass clutched in his hands.

Fuck him.

 

+++

 

 

 

“William! Dammit, William, open the door!” His spindly fingers are clenched into fists, and he knocks harder.

There’s voices on the other side of the door – William is _there_ , and presumably Mike too. They’re just… not letting him in.

“Please, William, I’m begging you,” he tries, “I’ve no money left, I can’t take it out. And I need…” There’s movement on the other side, and Ryan stills. Finally, someone is fucking _listening_ to him. Finally –

“Just go home Ross!” William shouts.

He gapes at the white door, paint peeling off in huge chunks. He fights down a primal growl of rage, and instead cries, “And where the _fuck_ is that?!” through the wood. It’s a thin door – he could knock it down.

He doesn’t, however, as an eldery woman has come out of her apartment to see what was going on, and another door opens down the hall, a young European guy sticking his head out to swear angrily at Ryan.

Fine. Fucking fine. He curses under his breath as he spins on his heel and shoves through the heavy door to the stairwell. He’s never taken the stairs this quickly in all his time here. Fine, fine, fine, and he says it on every step as he descends.

The sharp and bitter March air does nothing for the cold sweat he’s had for the last few hours. It makes him sweat even more. He doesn’t need this jacket, doesn’t need any layers at all.

He keeps walking and walking, blindly moving through red pedestrian lights and honking horns, until he’s stopped shaking. Mostly.

When he finally pauses to process his surroundings, he’s parkside. Fine.

His legs continue to move at their own accord, and he lights one of his remaining cigarettes with unstable fingers. It’s the first clear, sunny day that Chicago’s been blessed with in a while, and everywhere he looks people are out walking with their dogs and children and grandmas. And he stumbles through them all, occasionally getting pitiful looks from women passing by.

He doesn’t see them. He doesn’t see them because his gaze is pinned on a figure over by the pond, reclined on a park bench with their legs stretched in front of them.

Ryan doesn’t sigh, doesn’t say anything – he just walks over. Of all the distractions he needed, this was probably the least destructive.

That’s what he tells himself as he flops down onto the bench. The boy beside him doesn’t move, and Ryan keeps the cigarette between his fingers.

“Of all the parks in Chi-town…” he trails off. “The southside again, huh? Seriously?”

Brendon angles his head slightly to look at him briefly, and scuffs his heels on the grass. “It’s far away here,” he answers. The usual vagueness, then. His eyes are still huge and giving away nothing, but his face has changed, somehow, and he looks older. Which is ridiculous, as it’s only been a few months. But it’s there.

“I thought maybe you just have,” – he says out of the side of his mouth – “a pond fetish.”

Brendon almost smiles, which is fucking amazing. “Fuck off, I…” he pauses when he looks at Ryan properly. “Wow, you look like—”

“Death, I know.” He reflexively lifts a hand to run through his hair, but there’s no long strands falling down his forehead anymore. Chopped it a few weeks ago. “Withdrawals,” he says in an exhale, and it’s honest. “I haven’t slept in like, seventy two hours.” Brendon’s eyes stray to his jumpy leg, and Ryan tries to still it. He can’t.

Brendon just shrugs. “You could either die slowly with the drinking or quickly on the withdrawls. I’d rather die quickly.”

Ryan scowls at him. “It’s not like it’s voluntary,” he says, his teeth together. “I ran out of fucking money. I mean, I have some in the bank, but they won’t let me take any more out, ‘cause I need it for rent.” He tilts his head and stares at the sun while he blows smoke out, hopes the nausea doesn’t return. He dealt with that all morning.

“Listen,” he starts, the desperate tone from earlier leaking in. “I need… do you have like, three dollars?”

Brendon’s got his scrutinizing frowny face on. Ryan holds his breath. “Why do I get the feeling it’s not for the bus home?”

Ryan inches closer. “ _Please_. I really can’t deal with feeling like this anymore. I ran out of booze _two_ days ago, and I just need a tiny, tiny bit so it won’t be like this.” Anything, _anything_ but this.

“I’m not the damn AA. And I’m not a pushover either. I’m not giving you any money.” Ryan stares him down – it doesn’t work. Fine, Mr. I Have No Compassion.

“I’m not giving you money, but – when was the last time you’ve eaten something?”

Ryan stubs the cigarette out in a defeated manner. “That’s really the least of my worries.”

Brendon snorts. “You’re an idiot, did you know that?” he asks as he stands up and stretches his arms up into the sky. His hoodie rides up the tiniest bit to show a sliver of skin.

“Where you going?” Ryan’s hands are shaking again, but he doesn’t think about it.

“I guess I’m buying you food,” Brendon muses, fixing his scarf. Then he’s walking back up the slight incline to the sidewalk and Ryan scrambles up off the seat to follow him. The rush of blood to his head gets ignored.

It feels strange to fall into step beside Brendon. Both of their hands are shoved into their pockets, and when Ryan shoots glances at him his eyes are focused ahead, but they’re wide and his brows are tightened in confusion, like he still can’t believe what he’s doing. The look he always wears around Ryan. Just for him.

“Are you doing this because I’m a good lay, or because you get off on running wild with the kind of people your parents would hate?”

Brendon’s mouth twists into what might be amusement. “You’re always the one throwing the questions at me. You want me to interrogate you instead?”

Ryan jumps to the side to dodge a pair of joggers. “I’m here with my eyes falling out of my face and completely prepared to panhandle for change. You really want to know any more?”

This time Brendon _does_ huff out laughter, and his face loosens a little bit as they walk out of the park gates.

And so quickly like that; Brendon just steps back into his life – as if he was ever in it properly before.

 

______________

 

 

“When did it get so fucking _hot_?”

Someone on the other side of the room whistles suggestively. Ryan rolls his eyes and continues to pull his own shirt over his head.

Wayne, an African-American guy in his early thirties at least, who’s in the middle of tying his shoelaces beside him, looks up. “Well, the temperature’s risen, I guess. It’s just April, though, man. I wouldn’t get too excited.”

Ryan hums in agreement and stuffs his uniform into his shoulder bag with little care.

“What you doing down here anyways?” Wayne asks, now up and pulling his own jacket on. “You never usually bother getting changed.”

“Just decided to today, I guess,” Ryan shrugs and smiles at Wayne in lieu of goodbye. He hoists the strap of his bag over his shoulder and grabs his sweater off the bench before making his way to the door.

“At least put your sweater on, kid!” Wayne shouts to his back. Ryan rolls his eyes again and heads out of the changing room, ignoring the exit door that the cleaning staff used. He tries to get his arms into the sleeves of his hoodie as he claps up the lino stairs, and then half-jogs the rest of the way up to the ground floor.

The lobby area is as usual, incredibly quiet with the lights still on, though they’ll be off soon. He does sometimes wonder what it was like here at midday – when there was people rushing about, phones ringing, no obnoxious guys barely out of their teens sprawled across the reception desk on their back – although Ryan has no doubts that he would do something like that at any time of the day.

Brendon sees him out of the corner of his eye, and sighs dramatically as he gets down off the desk, his bright sneakers hitting the hard carpet. “Took your sweet time,” he mutters, and shoves his shoulder against Ryan’s. Ryan shoves him back.

The revolving door brings them into the night and they take the steps down two at a time. There’s no moon tonight, but the street lights and car lights flash over Brendon’s face; and he looks good. He does. But Ryan pushes that thought down, so far down it can no longer breathe.

“Why’d you ask to meet up _now_? What’s even open at this time?”

“Yeah, I dunno… we could get Chinese?” Brendon tries hopefully. Ryan sighs exaggeratedly. “Chinese has been ruined for me with that place you got food from the other week. _Ruined_ for me.”

Brendon doesn’t say anything, and Brendon might not be a pushover, but Ryan is becoming one. He waits for a couple of moments at least before he gives in. “ _Fine_ , we’ll get Chinese. Whatever.”

They walk up the steps to the train station, and they automatically go to the southbound platform without Ryan having to ask. The train itself is almost empty, and Brendon sits beside him and looks out the window with a great display of concentration.

Ryan takes the opportunity to dig into his bag for his hipflask, and brings it to his lips to savor whatever was left in it. He waits one second, two, three –

“You can’t be serious,” Brendon says, too loud. “Put that the fuck _away,_ what is wrong with you?”

Ryan was putting it away anyway. “Thought you always had the answers to that,” he mumbles.

Brendon lets out a noise of exasperation. “Are you seriously drunk right now?”

“No,” Ryan says, defensive. “It takes a lot more to get me fucking drunk.”

“It doesn’t take anything to get you drunk, because you’re _always_ drunk.”

“Could you please lower your voice?” he hisses.

Brendon sits back into his seat properly. It’s pathetic, but Ryan wants to tell him that he’s actually been a little better. He has.

“When are we stopping for this food, then?” he inquires, changing the subject and secretly hoping Brendon doesn’t keep up the huffy disappointed act.

Brendon’s eyes jump from the moving city outside to Ryan, and then back.

“Whenever the train finishes, I guess,” he replies impassively, and Ryan nods like that’s absolutely fine.

There’s a lot Brendon isn’t saying either.

+++

The smallest, smallest hint of a summer breeze blows through the longer strands of his hair, and the gust of smoke he exhales gets carried with it. His elbows rest on the windowsill as he halfheartedly leans out to smoke, because he was always kind of afraid of the fire alarm going off and being kicked out of the apartment for good. His other hand is holding open a book, and he sticks the cigarette into his mouth whenever he turns a page.

He had, by all accounts, forgotten how much he loved reading. Not that it had ever gotten him very far.

He’s still on the same cigarette when the door bangs, which he automatically assumes is William and is therefore going to ignore. Wiliam had been making himself scarce the last few months, Ryan only seeing him on his way up the stairs or at the train station, and whenever he did William was cold and distant, usually opting to ignore him instead. Which was fucking weird, and rude, and made Ryan feel things he wasn’t quite prepared to face yet.

But he had been waiting for the moment when William came wallowing back, and the more he thinks about it the more he wants to see William’s face as he puts him through misery and refuses to accept apologies, so he ducks back into the room and walks over to the door to unfix the several sets of locks.

It’s not William with his drugs and excuses standing there when he opens the creaking door. Big Brown Eyes in his skinny jeans and baseball shirt is there instead. He’s got an obnoxious pair of sunglasses on the top of his head.

“Brendon,” he says in his flat tone. Brendon looks less than happy to see him too, although Ryan’s not sure what else he was expecting by knocking on his door at two o’clock on a Thursday.

“Ryan,” he replies, and pushes past him into the room.

Always too confident for his own good.

“Well, what’s up?” Ryan asks, which translates as _“what the fuck are you doing here?”_ Brendon should know that by now.

Mr. Vague, in his typical fashion, ignores him and collapses onto the couch. He nods at the overturned book on the armrest. “Were you _reading_?”

Ryan stubs his cigarette out into his ashtray on the table. “Don’t look so fucking surprised. I found a box of my books and shit that I brought with me in the coat closet, like pretty much the only stuff I haven’t gotten around to selling yet. But hey, I used to be super into novels and stuff, when I was still in highschool anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, the highschool thing,” Brendon says with an audible eyeroll. “You ever gonna spit that story out?”

Those stupid fucking eyes. “There’s no story,” he says, bluntly. “I just didn’t finish highschool.”

Brendon sits up a little straighter on his seat, wide-eyed for a moment, and then his face flattens again. “Oh yeah? Consider me shocked.”

Ryan grabs his book, _Tropic of Cancer_ by Miller, and swats Brendon with it before sitting down too, leaving a careful distance between them. He doesn’t want to push it yet. What happened between them back in December neither of them ever bring up – instead they nonchalantly avoid the issue, since both of them clearly regret it and solemnly understand that it was a consequence of shock exposure and delirium. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

“Fuck you,” Ryan says, remembering the conversation. He focuses on the blank television. “Behavioral problems,” he says with air quotations. “That was my description. There was undoubtedly a ‘warning’ sign in every teacher’s room at all my schools.” He laughs with no humor at all. “I was just that kid, you know, who was always falling in with the wrong crowd, doing ridiculous shit that I had no explanation for doing. And then in junior year… me and these guys… we were just horsing around in one of the classrooms, and we had lighters.” He fiddles with his own one in his hand, pressing it on and off. “We were trying to light little pieces of paper on fire, and they did, but then some books caught fire too, and before we even knew what we’d done half the classroom was up in flames. And we were kicked out of there pretty damn fast, trust me.”

Brendon’s not looking at him, but rather at Ryan’s lighter with a concerned expression like he might set the apartment ablaze too. Ryan flicks the cap closed and rests his head on the back of the couch. “I broke some teacher’s hearts when I was a kid, I shit you not.” He mimics an anguished female voice. “They said I was a smart kid, such a smart kid! If only he focused more on his studies! If only he hadn’t egged Mr. Limwood’s car! If only he did all his homework! If only he hadn’t set the school on fire!”

There’s a moment of silence, and in that small period of time Ryan comes to the unsettling realization that he had just spoken about his past to someone. Not even just someone, but to _Brendon._ It’s afternoon. He’s not even drunk, or stoned. What the fuck? he asks himself impatiently. What the fuck?

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Brendon finally concludes, interrupting Ryan’s mounting inner panic. “Didn’t your parents enroll you in another school?”

“Nah. They didn’t fucking care,” Ryan says tightly. They didn’t have the money or sense to care about Ryan’s education. It was irrelevant.

Brendon still looks confused and offended. “So you… moved out? Are you from the suburbs or what?”

That throws Ryan off. He’s always just assumed Brendon knew he wasn’t from Illnois. Like that was some basic fact he had mentioned to him at some stage. But Brendon didn’t even know his second name.

“I moved out two years ago, yeah. I’m not from here – I’m a Vegas kid.” He smiles weakly. “Sin City and all that. I hated Las Vegas – but let me tell you this – and no offence – but I fucking hate Chicago too.”

Brendon bristles at this, which is no surprise. “Chi-town’s not so bad. I like it.”

“Of course you do. You’re _from_ here. And you’re fucking loaded.”

“Liking or disliking a city itself has nothing to do with wealth!”

“Yes, it does,” Ryan argues.

Both of them quiet at the sound of footsteps out in the hallway, which seem to stop right outside Ryan’s door. Then whoever it is keeps walking again, and Brendon takes the silence as an opportunity to laugh at some unknown joke, right before he says, “God, you’re such an –

Ryan reaches out and pushes the side of his head. “Don’t call me an idiot again.”

Brendon shoves his head back, and if he had done that at any other point in the last year Ryan would have blacked out from dizziness, but he’s sober right now, and he silently thanks this fact as he and Brendon destroy the careful space and boundaries between them as they violently grab at each other, twisting and pushing, and Brendon rolls him onto the floor, with Ryan trying to grab his neck and stop him. But Brendon’s strength seems to overpower his, and it only takes a couple of seconds before Brendon is planted on top of his stomach, with Ryan’s arms pinned on the floor against his sides in a way that more than vaguely sexual, and Ryan is definitely at least half-hard, and Brendon must be too, but they ignore it, both of them ignore it, and Brendon says snidely, “I meant to ask, how did your broken rib heal?”

Ryan, breathless from trying to struggle out of Brendon’s grip, shoots him a confused and pissed off face. “My rib was never broken? It was bruised, and it’s fine, no thanks to you.”

“Oh no,” Brendon says, pretending to be completely unaffected. “It was definitely broken.”

“Who cares?” he snaps, trying to pry his wrist out of Brendon’s tightlocked fingers. “It healed itself. It still fucking hurts if I touch it too hard, but it’s fine.”

“Oh yeah?” Brendon’s eyes stray down to his chest. Suddenly Ryan’s arms are free, and Brendon, lightning quick, presses his thumb down onto Ryan’s left ribcage; right into where one of the worst bruises had been. The fucker _knew_ this, of course. Of course.

Ryan lets out a yelp of pain as the feeling he had to endure for weeks reawakens around his body, and he hauls Brendon off of him, scrambling up onto this feet and holding an arm across in chest for protection. “Are you fucking sadistic?” he hisses. Brendon’s smiling. _Smiling_. He’s had it up to fucking here with Brendon, his mind games, his aimless wanderings, his appearances at his door for no reason, his face, his mouth, his clearly pyschotic –

“Do you wanna go to a show tonight? I know you’re working but we can go straight after and still catch most of it.” He rolls up onto the balls of his feet and back down. “It’s in the university district. It’s free.”

He’s got some fucking nerve. And it’s no longer going to work on Ryan. He’s finished. He refuses to be dragged across town to watch some shitty college band play. He’s no longer putting up with him, Brendon, Mr. Everything Good and Bad.

“Fine,” he exhales.

Brendon flashes him a smile that’s surely not supposed to be as arrogant as it is, and then flies out of the room and slams the door. His steps down the hall are almost silent.

Ryan only barely, _barely_ succeeds in resisting the urge to scream.

+++

“I’m getting tired of veggie burritos,” Brendon says as he scans the menu, his fingernails clicking against the back of it in an irritating way. “I might go for the bean enchiladas this time.”

He looks up from his menu at Ryan, and says, “What about you?” and Ryan quickly forgets to be irritated.

“Not sure,” he coughs and takes a sip of his coke to mask it. “Are _you_ paying?”

Brendon sighs as he puts his plastic menu down on the table. “Can you not be an adult just this once and buy your own meal? You work two jobs now.”

Ryan shudders at the mention of work; he _had_ taken up a second job at the weekends, hosing down dishes in a diner a whole less nicer than the one they were in now. And it certainly didn’t equal having money for meals out. As Brendon had even said himself, if he wanted to get out of where he was now, he needed savings first.

He inclines across the table and puts his chin in his hands, wetting his bottom lip and blinking up at Brendon. Blues music is playing over the speakers. Brendon doesn’t move an inch, and his gaze is unwillingly drawn to Ryan’s mouth as he repeats, “You paying?”

There’s the sound of someone pointedly clearing their throat beside their table, and the trance is broken as both of them look up to see a waiter standing with a pen and paper in hand, looking uncomfortable and mildly disgusted. “Can I take an order?”

Brendon mumbles out his request and Ryan rolls up the sleeves of his T-shirt that was four sizes too big for him. “I’ll have the cheese quesadillas for starters, please, and the chicken tacos with medium sauce, and a side of pinto beans.” He stops. “And an extra plate of nachos with sour cream to share.”

The waiter scribbles it down, grabs their menus and leaves without another word. Brendon’s glaring at him, he can see that out of the top of his eyes as he pours taco sauce all over the corn chips on their table. Ryan nods at the security card on a lanyard that’s still around Brendon’s neck from where he presumably was this morning. “Aren’t afraid of getting taken for ransom?”

Brendon’s mouth is pressed shut, and Ryan chews thoughtfully on the chips. “I mean, there are people out there whose _job_ it is to track people like you, you know. They get like, a list of all the people of significant wealth all around the city and then get data on their relatives, offspring, houses, everything. I imagine you’re a target.”

That sets Brendon off. “Well you seem to know a lot about it,” he says, in his sarcastic pissed off voice. Ryan just smiles wickedly.

“Just looking out for you, you know.”

Brendon brows are still furrowed. “It’s not like I don’t know the risks. I had a goddamn driver until last year, but I mean, I’m not the president’s kid, I can walk around alone if I want. Plus, why would I want someone to know where I was at all times and be depedent on someone to bring me places constantly? That’s not safeguarding, that’s suffocating.”

“It’s good for someone to know where you are. Or where you’re going, at least.” No one ever cared about where he was except his employers during his shift hours, and Brendon, sometimes, now. But for the greater part of his existence he could have been pulled down an alley and shot and no one would have ever known.

“Don’t preach to me about safety,” Brendon says with a bitter edge, and Ryan is about to tip the bowl of chips, taco sauce and all, over Brendon’s head – a childish rage only Brendon could inspire – only he is interrupted by his quesadillas being placed in front of him. The pair continue to eye each other scathingly, and if the waiter was confused before, he was now thoroughly perplexed.

When they’ve eaten and elbow out the door of the restaurant it’s still sticky and humid, even though the midsummer sun is already starting to vanish over the skyscrapers. There’s people everywhere, but they all seemed to have slowed down a fraction, like the air is just too thick to walk through.

“Where even are we?” Ryan whines, hot and bored already and pulling out a cigarette.

“Near Westside,” Brendon mutters, trying to spot a street sign. “Adams Street west.”

“Oh awesome,” Ryan says with no inflection whatsoever. He doesn’t know the area, but he does know that he was even fucking further away from his apartment than usual.

Brendon rolls his eyes at him. “Look, I don’t wanna get on an L in this heat any more than you do. We can walk around for a bit and then get a cab, or something.”

“A fucking cab to Englewood?! Are you joking? That’s like a million miles from here. Even you would faint at the bill.”

“Oh I’m paying again, huh?” he shoots back, and god, he has no reason at all to be angry. Ryan gives him one last disbelieving glare with a puff of smoke in his direction and swings his shoulder around to march decisively to the nearest station, and resolves to get drunk with Joey again at the bar with the billiard table. He’s going to do that, fuck Brendon, fuck him, who probably lived Northside somewhere, a hell of lot closer than the distance Ryan had to travel.

He stops suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, almost knocking over several people walking behind him. Brendon’s still standing outside the Mexican place, a phone to his ear and chewing uneasily on a fingernail. Ryan walks determinedly back over, reaches him just as Brendon is hanging up. Brendon raises an eyebrow at him. “Have you stomped out your tantrum yet?”

“Your place,” Ryan says, ignoring him. “I wanna see it. Let’s go there.”

Brendon shakes his head violently. “No way. Absolutely no way. No.”

+++

They wind up in a taxi heading west over the river to Brendon’s Mystery Home, and Ryan basks in the air conditioning while Brendon fiddles nervously with his phone.

Ryan has a cellphone somewhere in his apartment that was surely dated and had been dead for months now. He couldn’t imagine who would want to call or text him, and he thinks idly of Brendon texting him and looks over at him in thought. His hair was getting long again, and worry lines creased his forehead. It only really occurred to Ryan just then how exhausted he looked, and consequently older than his age. His eyes are fixed on the city outside – although Ryan knows by now he’s really doing that thing he does where he stares at something with great transfixion but inwardly he’s mulling over some deep and apparently complex issue that Ryan will never hear or know. Thank god.

“Quit it,” Brendon says, gaze still focused out the window. Ryan huffs. It’s not like he was staring.

The car turns onto the North Michigan Avenue somewhere up north of the Loop, and Ryan gapes out the window as crowds of people walk past in the bright lights, carting shopping bags and expensive clothes. Ryan recognizes this street – from the fucking _movies._ “Don’t tell me,” he says, slowly. “You live on Mag Mile?”

“Just off it,” Brendon murmurs.

“Oh my god,” Ryan says under his breath. Hundreds of upscale designer boutiques flash by them, luxury hotels and department stores, all lit up and colorful, and Ryan gets giddier the further they go up the avenue. “This is insane, this is fucking Gold Coast, this is just—”

Brendon swats him with one hand. “Shut up, god.” He leans forward in his seat. “Turn left onto Walton.”

It’s only a few seconds later before Brendon is instructing the driver to stop, handing him a wad of notes before reluctantly following Ryan out of the car. Ryan’s in a daze on the pavement, head tilted back and staring up the montrosity that is Brendon’s building. He grabs Brendon’s arm. “ _Shit_ , dude. This is crazy. How many floors are there?”

“A lot,” Brendon answers and ushers him to the door. “Please act normally in front of the door man,” he says out of the side of his mouth.

“I’ve never seen _you_ act normal in all the time I’ve known you,” Ryan counters, which is the honest truth, but Brendon ignores him to smile at the door guy, nodding at Ryan and saying, “My friend.”

A friend.

In the elevator Brendon stabs a button and Ryan rests back on the mirror, trying to picture this as his own apartment, his own life, and failing. “I can’t believe this,” he whispers. “I mean, I can believe it, but I can’t believe _I’m_ here.” He glances at Brendon, who’s staring at the floor, he leg jumping. “Okay, seriously dude, what is eating you?” He’s not idiot. Something is bothering him, obviously.

But the elevator stops and the door springs open, and Brendon’s mouth closes as Ryan jumps out. He can hear him searching in his bag for his keys a couple of paces behind, and he impatiently waits as Brendon unlocks the double doors.

Unfortunately, all the sarcastic remarks he had stored up for this moment over the past few months have now vanished, and he stands in the marble foyer and blinks.

There’s several moments of silence as Ryan stares down the hall, and Brendon stands beside him shifting from foot to foot.

“Fuck you,” he finally says, almost breathless. “You’re paying for everything from now on. _Everything_.”

Brendon unwillingly shows him around the apartment floor, or at least the main rooms which were all connected by large open-plan entryways. It was hilariously huge, and inarguably antique, and even Ryan notes the teak wood kitchen and grand piano, hardwood floors and marble fireplaces.

Everything about it was fucking insane, and the initial amazement starts to wear thin when he suddenly feels like he’s in a horror movie he saw once where the protaganist dies in a fancy hotel room.

“All this space just for you and your parents?” Ryan asks, weaving in and out of plush vintage style couches.

“Just me and my dad,” Brendon says tightly.

“Oh,” he manages. “Are your parents divorced or something?” He thinks of the photo in Mr. Urie’s office with the handwriting on the back – they seemed like the Happy Family then.

Brendon doesn’t say anything to that, which wouldn’t be the first time he’s ignored one of his questions, and Ryan firmly decides to leave the clearly sensitive issue aside. They never talk about their parents, the two of them; Brendon only rarely mentions his father, and when he does it’s with poorly hidden contempt. And Ryan – well, there was nothing there to even talk about.

He falls down onto one of armchairs in the main family room and is up again in a second when he catches sight of the view out of the window. He presses his face against the glass as he exclaims, “You’ve got fucking lake views!”

Lake Michigan looked like the front garden – it was still visible and crystalline in the dusk, with lights along the promenade. “You never told me that,” he says, like that was an important fact Brendon should have shared, like there wasn’t a whole load of other stuff Brendon keeps private.

He looks at Brendon gravely, who’s stolen his seat on the couch. “Lemme see your room.”

“No way,” Brendon says hastily. Ryan’s already walking down the corridor. Brendon said there was four bedrooms – all of them have cool but obnoxious folding doors, and they were all closed. So Ryan tries the one closest to him, hoping to god it wasn’t his parents room, pulling the handle sideways as the partition starts to move.

His effort is immediately halted when he feels a hand on his hip. And Brendon clearly did it without thinking, a tactile gesture to pull him away from the door, but Ryan freezes and turns slightly to face him, and Brendon has removed his hand like it’s been burned.

Pathetic, as always.

Brendon blushes, which was unusual for him, and quickly uses anger to dig his way out. “You can’t just… go and storm into people’s rooms like that! It’s fucking rude!”

“You have had no problem doing it so far,” Ryan replies, and returns to pulling the door open while Brendon stands with his hands clenched into fists.

Brendon’s room is…unsurprisingly big, with more dark green colors and an imposing four poster bed that Ryan looks at dreamily for a second. There’s no pictures or posters on the walls, and the soft cream carpet is spotless.

He turns to Brendon, who looks like he can’t believe what’s happening. “You keep it pretty neat,” he says, which is more of question than a statement.

“I’m not allowed to do much with it,” Brendon says measuredly. “Can’t risk devaluing the price with bluetack.” He sighs bitterly.

“Right,” Ryan says absent-mindedly, because his attention has gravitated towards the row of four guitars on stands right in front of the large glass window, looking down onto the street miles below. Ryan runs his hands up the neck of a cream Fender telecaster. “You play?”

“No,” Brendon replies. “I just _collect_ them. For fun.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Are you any good? Do you like, write any music?”

Brendon waits half a beat before nodding, minutely. Ryan is very much lost in the maze of things he didn’t know about him before.

He looks over at Brendon, and it’s stupid, but something shifts somewhere in his head, some ridiculous feeling takes over where everything in this moment, in this day, feels important – the nervous tension in Brendon’s shoulders, the way the light of the skyscrapers reflects off the lake, the dark wood floors matching Brendon’s dark wooden eyes. It all suddenly matters. 

“Brendon,” he starts. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on,” he answers, predictably, and turns and walks back out of the bedroom. And Ryan follows him, of course he fucking does.

“It’s just…” Brendon says, pacing into the living area. “There’s somewhere… that I was supposed to be… today.” He stops beside the giant piano and shoots glances at the clock on the wall.

“What? Where?” Ryan’s brain rapidly starts conjuring a million places Brendon should have been instead of trailing around the city with him. The office, a party, an unknown friend’s house, a secret elite club gathering, on a plane to Hawaii –

“An interview… with some head representatives of Princeton.”

Ryans mouth falls open. “ _Princeton_? Like Princeton University?” He pauses. “Like, Princeton New Jersey?” Brendon doesn’t even snap back with a sarcastic reply, which is a warning sign as it is.

He frowns in confusion. “I thought you hadn’t decided where you were going yet?”

This, apparently, is the question that finally breaks Brendon, and something bottled up and primal is released from within him as his nervous calm shatters and he lets out an enraged growl.

“There was never…” he spins around and slams one hand down on the piano keys, an angry irregular note reverbating around the room. “…a fucking decision! He was never, _ever_ going to give me a decision!”

Ryan’s breath almost stops. He’s never seen Brendon this emotive about anything before. And he has no fucking idea what he’s even talking about.

Brendon collapses down onto the piano stool, deflated. And then his earth eyes are on Ryan.

“You told me you didn’t finish highschool… well, I almost didn’t either.”

Ryan’s eyebrows shoot up. Brendon, soon-to-be on the Princeton list?

“My mom died. Halfway through my senior year,” Brendon continues, staring hard at the piano keys. “A fucking heart attack. She died… and my life became something I didn’t recognize anymore.”

Ryan’s instinctive response to is to move to Brendon, but he’s frozen still. All he can see is that photograph of her that he saw, with her arms around her teenage son and smiling with the same eyes.

He’s frozen.

“I was not in a good place, for a long time. I dropped out of school, had to repeat the grade the following year so I could graduate. And my dad… just became this… shell of what he was. He stopped laughing, stopped doing things he liked, stopped eating dinner with me, even conversing with me.”

“And when he got over that part… he just became an asshole. I mean, he was never the nicest the guy in the world, and we were never close, but god Ryan,” he says, voice thick, “he became intolerable. He threw himself into his company, always Blackfeld Blackfeld Blackfeld, and then he started the fucking drinking.” Brendon looks up at the ceiling, and Ryan feels ill. “He wouldn’t talk to me for days, and I’d be in my room doing homework and he’d ring and say he was in D.C, oh, sorry for not saying, or sometimes he’d come staggering in yelling at the top of voice about how it was _my_ fault that mom died, because I was always _stressing_ her out, and–”

Ryan moves. He’s on the piano stool beside Brendon before he actively decides to do it, rubbing Brendon’s shouder blade and murmuring, “Brendon, hey, it’s okay.” He could handle anger, but to hear Brendon sounding this broken was upturning things inside him.

“It wasn’t okay,” Brendon whispers. “It was anything but okay. All my friends had gone to college, and I was stuck in school alone, in this huge apartment alone, with the ghost of my dead mother and the nightmare of my drunk father.”

He breathes, and seems to compose himself slightly as he sits up straighter, and Ryan moves away a little to give him space. Still, he stays close.

“When I told him I wanted to delay college for a year – fuck, that was a battle near impossible to win. Making me do all this work experience in the office? Making sure I’m miserable so I’ll be desperate to head off to college? He went to Princeton himself, you know, and it’s always been, ‘This is my son Brendon, he looks nothing like me, I know, ha ha, but he’s going to Princeton!’ Like, fuck, he’s been contributing there since I was born. There was never any choice for me. But the thing is, now it’s become _less_ about sending me to Princeton and more about just having me fucking gone.” He takes another deep breath.

“And the punchline is that – I don’t even fucking _want_ to go to college! I never have, and he doesn’t _know_ this, doesn’t know anything about me, like how I’m serious about creating music, about making this my life, doesn’t know who I hang out with or that I’m – I don’t know – fuck, not into girls…” Brendon presses down on another key. “But the hilarious thing is that if he did actually know any of that, he’d disown me.” He breaks into hollow laughter and finishes with a smile, although one in which Ryan detects little joy.

“He thinks he can send me off to New Jersey? Fuck him. Fuck him.”

Ryan’s head spins wildly and he can’t help feeling like he’s just met Brendon for the first time – or like he just understands him for the first time. What have they really been for last few months, other than magnet strangers?

And it changes something. It’s changed.

The only light in the room Brendon had bothered with was a lamp in the corner, and it lights him in a soft glow. And he can tell by the way Brendon sits at the piano that he knows how to play it properly, so he leans into him again and with a low voice he says, “Play something.”

Brendon, tired and with an air of finality, just plays.

+++

Ryan scuffs the tarmac with the top of his worn-down canvas shoe, and tries to ignore the smell of trash wafting from the dumpsters beside him. The emergency exit door is half open, and he rolls his head back to blow out the smoke from his cigarette, admires the orange and pink sky up above for a split second. Another Chicago sunset.

He fishes his cell out of his pocket again: there’s nothing new. He hasn’t seen or heard from Brendon in a week now, and any messages or calls Ryan left on his phone are still unanswered. A week isn’t very long. In the grand scheme of life it’s only a second in time.

There’s a part of Ryan that still doesn’t _want_ to care. But he does. He does care. Every day that passes with silence from Brendon he fidgets and paces more, nervous and convinced that Brendon’s just bought himself a pickup truck and hit the road. He’d do that. Brendon would do that. Always too arrogant and independent for his own good.

“Ross, hey!” Another guy on the facility management team sticks his head around the door. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Keiler wants you upstairs, I’d run,” he warns, and disappears again.

Ryan walks grudgingly inside with a last inhale of nicotine, and the sunset disappears.

+++

“God dammit,” he says under his breath as he closes his last shaky cabinet. He’s got nothing – no prescription or recreational drugs of any kind. Not even any fucking alcohol.

His ribs were acting up. Which was strange, and annoying, as they hadn’t bothered him weeks. But right now there was bone in his ribcage that felt like it had just been freshly snapped, and maybe Brendon was right – maybe that asshole Len _had_ broken it all those months ago.

Either way, he needed something to eliminate the pain. He’d even settle for a mild concealing of said pain.

Desperate times call for awkward and uncomfortable measures.

He knocks tentatively on William and Mike’s door, the paint almost entirely peeled away to reveal the rotting wood underneath. There’s the hopeful sound of locks clicking free, and the door opens, which Ryan was not originally expecting. Mike is standing there with his glasses and trackpants, taking him in with mild surprise.

“You,” he says, which is not really said with any malice or intent, but rather just a statement of Ryan’s presence.

“Me,” Ryan returns, and pretends not to look over Mike’s shoulder. He focuses on the task at hand. “I’m just wondering if you have any, say, pain-relieving substances? Drugs?”

“You’re not getting my weed,” Mike says in his usual laidback monotone. “I’ve probably got Dayquil or something here, though, come in for a sec.”

Their apartment looks the same as it always did, with just as much junk lying around as Ryan remembers. Mike has to climb over a spinning machine to get to the kitchen.

“You finally off the booze, then, Ryan?” Mike asks. “I don’t think you’ve ever been in here sober before.”

“Yes. Well no. No, yeah.” He thinks of a younger Brendon sitting alone in his room, his dad in a fancy business suit coming in with the smell of alcohol on his breath, yelling abuse at Brendon for no good reason.

“No, I don’t drink anymore, really,” Ryan affirms. “It was hard to kick, so I may as well keep going, right?”

“That’s great man,” Mike says, his voice muffled from inside a cabinet. “You were kind of a mess. No offence,” he assures, emerging upright again with the pills. Ryan could never really take offence to anything Mike says anyway. Plus, he _was_ a mess. In many ways he still is.

“I guess William would be happy,” Mike adds as he throws Ryan the Dayquil.

Ryan quickly takes the opportunity.

“Yeah, William, how is he? He doesn’t – I mean, I haven’t seen him in ages.”

Mike frowns. “Dude… William’s gone. He’s been outta here about a month now.”

“A _month_? Where’s he gone?” Ryan’s eyes automatically dart around the apartment, as if William was going to pop out from behind a piece of furniture.

Mike looks uneasy for a second, and then sighs. “You know that street dealing situation he was involved with when he was younger?” Ryan nods, even though he doesn’t really know. William never told him that, but Ryan always had a hunch of something of that calibre. “Half that group are still on the run. Anyway, the CPD located his name to this address. All they had for a long time was just his name, like, they had no photograph or details. William was safe here, and the documents for the apartment were under my name.” He exhales softly, and looks out the dirty window in a trance. “I think there was a tip off… but it was only a matter of time, really. He packed a bag and ran.”

Something horrible settles at the bottom of Ryan’s stomach, and the rib pain no longer seems important. Godammit, William.

“I just wish I knew where he was,” Mike says. “I imagine he’s down south by now.”

“You just… protected him here with you? What was the trade-off?” Ryan asks, because he has to know.

Mike shrugs. “I was his friend. That’s what friends do, I guess.”

Ryan nods, thanks Mike for the drugs and picks his way back to the door. When his spider fingers are on the handle, he finds himself looking back at the guy by the kitchen counter and asking, “Mike… what did I do to William that made him stop talking to me? What was going on?”

Mike rubs his elbow, looking uncomfortable. “That’s really not for me to say. I’m sorry.”

Ryan nods again, closes the door and walks unsteadily back to his own apartment. He pours out a glass of water and throws two tablets down his throat.

They don’t do anything to help the stupid guilt that is now consuming him.

+++

When he wakes up on Sunday morning he doesn’t get up.

He’s still only half-conscious as his hand trails down to his dick, still just slowly stroking himself when he feels something vibrate loudly under his shoulder blade.

He jumps upright into a sitting position, twisting around on his bed to see his cell phone on the mattress. He grabs it dizzily and unlocks it to find a message. A message from Brendon. He breathes out an exhale.

_Are you @ home?_

His fingers stab out a reply, and the message has only just sent when he gets another one.

_Are you sober?_

Now he just growls at his phone. Whatever fucking game Brendon was playing, he doesn’t want to know.

Not that he can deny the relief that now washes through him. He had been somewhat considering just trekking to Brendon’s apartment and buzzing until someone answered.

He forgets the jerking off, and wrestles on his boxers and oversized white T-shirt before he lies back down on the mattress. He counts all the patches of peeling plaster on the ceiling, so concentrated on the task that he almost doesn’t register the first knock on his door. But he does, and he slowly gets up – his heart rate spiking as he walks towards the door – the way it did when the only thing his body craved was alcohol.

He undoes the chain and lock and pulls open the door. Mr. Lost and Found blinks back.

He’s not alone either – a guitar case hangs off each shoulder, a duffel bag is hooked on his arm and a size-large suitcase stands beside him. And Ryan can’t even pretend he’s surprised.

“You’ve got some nerve,” he says testily.

Brendon’s sweating slightly and looks largely out of breath, like he should be if he just hauled all that crap up four flights of stairs. He has to swallow before he speaks. “Look, Ryan, I…”

“Oh my god,” Ryan huffs, stopping Brendon from sputtering out whatever ridiculous reason he has for showing up here. With one hand he pushes the door open wider and Brendon stumbles in, his bags banging against the doorjamb. Ryan watches everything get dumped unceremoniously in a pile by the makeshift table, and they look out of place.

He only lasts a couple of seconds before he breaks. “Brendon, what are you _doing_? Why are you _here_ , why didn’t you book a hotel or something?” He stares at him in disbelief. Why would anyone choose here over literally anywhere else?

Brendon, Brendon doesn’t even have to answer – he just looks over at Ryan, his eyes right on his, and everything about that look is honest. The most vulnerable Brendon’s ever been. Ryan’s breathing falters for a split second.

He’s not choosing the location.

There’s a lull where the tension between them is suddenly palpable, and Ryan desperately resorts to anger. “And you just disappeared for two weeks! You could have fucking answered my calls instead of waiting to pop up here without warning! For all I knew you could have been in freaking Canada.”

“Trust me, I considered Canada,” Brendon says, huffing a halfhearted laugh, but Ryan doesn’t smile. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all this, Ryan. I needed time to transfer all my savings to new accounts that my dad couldn’t access. And then I needed to deal with _him_.” He sighs and sits resignedly down on the wooden chair sticking out from the table.

“I listened to your voicemails,” Brendon tries, as if that makes a difference. “I didn’t reply because I didn’t know what to _say_.”

Ryan sighs, and runs his hands through his curly mop of hair. “Well I lost my goddamn job at Blackfeld, you’ll be happy to know. They found CCTV footage of me drinking under a desk from _last year_. Fucking…” He’s still angry at the thought of it.

Brendon blinks at him, and then crumples over the table with his face in his hands. “You’re such a fucking idiot, I swear.” His body is shaking in silent laughter.

Ryan stomps past him into the kitchenette. “Yeah, whatever, not one of my finest moments, shut the fuck up,” he snaps as he opens and closes drawers, trying to locate his spare lighter.

Brendon sits up, apparently recovered, and scratches his fingernail over a mark in the table as Ryan lights a smoke. “Anyway,” Brendon says to the table, “this is just temporary. I have money… a lot of it. I’ll get us a decent place that’ll do us both.”

“Us?” Ryan questions, despite his heart beating against his ribs. “Since when did it become _us_? When did I sign up to be dragged into your plans and problems?”

He always thought of him and Brendon in two categories: the past, and the present. He had never once stopped to consider the two of them in the future.

Brendon closes his mouth in thought. “I guess you signed up to it when you drunkenly took a couple of punches for me once.”

Ryan almost laughs. He almost does. But he’s not finished with Brendon yet, and the smoke from his cigarette clears between them.

“So you’re just… you’re just moving in with me?” He watches with masked joy as Brendon blushes from the connotation. Ryan keeps his frown carefully in place. “Who fucking said you could just do that?”

Brendon bites his bottom lip, and Ryan was always weak for Brendon’s mouth. He’d admit to that. He’d openly admit to that.

“You let me in,” Brendon finally concludes. Like that’s it. Done.

Deal.

+++

He gets home from work smelling of garlic, and generally pissed off with the world, to find Brendon lying across the mattress on his stomach, clicking away at his laptop. _Ryan_ ’ _s_ mattress. 

He had pictured he and Brendon doing many things in the time he had known him, but never had he imagined the scenario of coming home to Brendon. A part of him wants to be angry at Brendon for just arrogantly taking his space like he had always lived there, but a far more dominant part of him claps in victory, his head reeling in a good way that only Brendon has ever induced in him.

He flings his keys on the table, and Brendon chimes a greeting, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Ryan drawls, kicking off his shoes and shrugging out of his hoodie. “But I thought that was my bed, and the couch – although still mine – was temporarily yours.”

“Don’t even start the bitching,” Brendon says distractedly. “I need the socket for my charger.” He looks over his shoulder at Ryan. “Go shower and get changed and we’ll get out of here. We’ll get food and maybe… a bar?”

“Why?” Ryan asks stupidly, already walking towards the bathroom. Being surrounded by temptation when he was out just panicked him, and he wasn’t that into it.

“Well, we can just get dinner,” Brendon says contemplatively. “And it can be on me, since it’s your birthday this week and all.” He smiles mischieviously.

Ryan snorts. As if Brendon wasn’t paying for all his dinners at the moment.

He showers with his skin itching at the thought of Brendon on the other side of the door, and gets out sooner than usual. He instinctively goes to walk out with a towel wrapped around his waist, but then thinks better off it and pulls his jeans on at least. He had only shared a room with Brendon for a week now, but the fragility was getting fucking tiring.

Brendon’s still in exactly the same position when he strides out. He flops his ass down onto the bed beside him, a towel around his neck to catch the droplets of water that fall persistently from his curls. “What are you doing?” he asks, trying to see the screen in the bright afternoon light.

“Looking for an apartment,” Brendon explains. “I’m starting to think three bedrooms is too many.” He looks up at Ryan gravely. “What are your thoughts on wood flooring? Or should we just judge the apartment on everything else and get the floors changed if we want to?”

Ryan stares at Brendon, and Brendon stares patiently back, waiting for an answer.

“Brendon,” he starts, slowly. “I think… you’ve skipped a step somewhere on this ladder.”

Brendon’s mouth opens and his brows dip in confusion. “Wha’dya mean? What ladder?”

Ryan just moves the laptop off the mattress, and pushes Brendon’s shoulder until he rolls onto his back. And Brendon goes with it, his eyes wide and still not understanding.

With a hand on either side of his head, Ryan leans down, his mouth inches away from Brendon’s as he murmurs, “It’s just that usually I date someone before I get _married_.”

Brendon’s laugh is just an exhale against Ryan’s mouth, and he closes the gap between them, kisses the smile off Brendon’s face and takes it for himself.

Mr. Inevitable. 

+++

The Chicago coastline flies past them as Brendon drives the rental up Lake Shore Drive, and Ryan admires the view out the window when he can; mostly the lake is concealed by trees.

He changes the radio station every few seconds simply to irritate Brendon. As soon as Brendon hears a song he likes and starts to sing it happily under his breath, Ryan switches station, until Brendon starts snapping his hand away with fury.

They finally come off Lake Shore to drive into Edgewater, and when they approach a crossroad Ryan tells him firmly to take the right lane. Brendon is a second away from arguing before he just swings the car, an old BMW that he swooned at in the rental garage, onto the other lane, to turn down the tiny road heading right.

It’s more of a dirt track then anything else, that peters out into a carpark for the beach. It’s deserted, and Brendon pulls up and gives Ryan a look before they both unclick their seatbelts and step out of the car onto the sandy ground. There’s a railing that runs above the low rocks further up and they walk over, Ryan climbing to sit on it and Brendon following suit.

It’s the time of the year when the lake looks more white than any other variable color, and the wind causes the water to rise and crash as it falls back down.

Ryan and Brendon press close together to share heat, Ryan’s long hair flying all over his face as the wind whips around them. He fishes a cigarette out of a box and sticks it in his mouth before awkwardly reaching into his pocket for his lighter.

But his cigarette is unexpectedly pulled out from between his lips by his companion, who flings it over the rocks and watches it disappear into the wind.

“You _asshole_ ,” Ryan stutters incredulously. “You can’t just–”

Brendon cuts him off as he leans in swiftly and kisses him right there on the empty beach, open mouthed and triumphant. Ryan makes a noise of indignation but doesn’t let go, just closes his fingers into Brendon’s jacket as Brendon tongues his lip, consoling for what he has lost.

They do pull away for oxygen eventually, and Ryan smiles into the cold air, completely forgetting his cigarette. “We should drive all around the lake,” he decides. “Then afterwards let’s go somewhere warm, keep driving all through the holidays.” He glances at Brendon. “And you can suck me off in every hotel and motel we find.”

“Oh I can, can I?”

“You should be delighted with the opportunity,” Ryan insists, and Brendon elbows him, causing him to almost fall off the fence, and he pushes Brendon back with his shoulder in retaliation, until they’re both suddenly holding onto each other and the fence for support.

The two of them breathe for a second, letting the panic of their near-miss pass, until they both break into laughter that gets carried away by the wind. Brendon lets go of his clutch on Ryan’s arm to reach down to his freezing hand, linking it with his.

And just the way Brendon _looks_ at him is enough – enough to make his hand tighten over Brendon’s in response.


End file.
